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At first glance, Super and J.Crew seem to have little in common. One is inspired by New York City’s gritty skate culture of the 90s. Another embraces the prep school style first introduced by Ivy League colleges in the 1910s.
But Brendan Babenzin, who spent more than a decade defining design before taking over J.Crew’s menswear department in 2021, sees a difference. If done well, they should be both aesthetically timeless and defy trends. “Fashion is about convincing you that what you own is no longer relevant,” he says. But in some ways, fashion does not enter the conversation [either J.Crew or Supreme]. They talk about how good it is to wear your old clothes.
For three decades, Babinzin has been a fixture on the American fashion landscape. He established his design chops as the senior creative director, a position he held for nearly two decades. In the year In 2015, he left the streetwear brand to relaunch Noah, continuing to design for Noah, the pioneering menswear label he started with his wife Estelle in 2002, and released the autumn/winter collection for the brand.
J.Crew brought it back last May, a year after declaring bankruptcy. Last month, the brand released Babenzien’s debut collection, which reinvents simple, uncluttered menswear classics from the brand’s archive, such as paisley ties, Fair Isle sweaters and striped oxford shirts. Fashion critics from GQ to the HighSnobeity Babenzien gave high marks for the designs. The hope is that it can bring J.Crew back to its roots, purveying high-quality, affordable classics that made it so successful in the ’80s and ’90s.
Babenzien’s growth coincided with the rise of fast fashion, which now dominates the industry. Pioneers like H&M and Zara built complex global supply chains in the 90s, relying on low-wage Asian factories that could produce fashion looks at bargain prices. Consumers are starting to treat their clothes as disposable and clothes are now being piled into landfills at the rate of a load per second. To compete, brands in every industry, from Old Navy to Urban Outfitters, have felt the need to churn out hundreds of new styles each season and keep prices low. Over the past five years, Chinese powerhouse Haixin has upgraded its business model and updated its website with 6,000 new styles. dailyIt generated $16 billion in revenue last year.
Many fashion brands are starting to think about how to operate sustainably, from setting up textile recycling systems to offsetting carbon emissions. Babenzien is interested in this. He used Noah as a laboratory to research sustainable materials such as heavyweight Austrian wool and thorn-free waxed cotton. Noah’s website features a fabric index to explain the origin and characteristics of each material. It is also chosen to manufacture products in countries with strong environmental regulations, including Italy, Canada and Portugal. Babenzien said he wants to bring an ethically-sourced approach to J.Crew. (The brand has recently been criticized for not being transparent enough about its supply chain, in a remake that advocates for a more ethical fashion industry.)
But in some ways, Babenzien is more interested in what kind of clothes he wears watch out If we eliminate the fast fashion system. He believes that creating a more sustainable clothing brand starts with designing clothes that customers want to wear season after season. There are a few other designers who have struggled with this question. In womenswear, for example, Eileen Fisher has evolved over the decades with soft-fitting clothes in neutral colors like black and white that are meant to evolve with the female body. Jerry Lorenzo’s label, Fear of God, released the Eternals collection earlier this year, named after its unisex silhouettes that say “live forever” in muted colorways.
For Babenzien, minimalism isn’t necessarily the answer. He believes that it is possible to focus on the beauty that has stood the test of time, at least in the last few decades. This has become one of his fixations on Prime and Noah; With both brands, season after season is obsessed with creating the perfect matching hats and t-shirts. Now he brings the same approach to J.Crew. He pointed out that streetwear and menswear are a consistent example of styles and trends born in the United States. Indeed, Babenzin has played a role in bringing these two aesthetics together over the course of his career, creating a pre-streetwear flair designed to be timeless. “There’s a kind of cross-over because they’re both American,” he says. “The product is more or less what it always was.”
Streetwear has been embracing the new country-club aesthetic that’s been evolving for a while now. But this presents an interesting challenge from a design perspective for a brand as iconic as J.Crew. Babinzin says his goal isn’t to stray too far from classic clothes, so he sees the role by making very small changes or putting them together in ways that make them look fresh again. From a business perspective, Banzin believes his job is to keep durable versions of these classics in stock, so customers can restock their clothing or replace worn-out pieces. “In menswear, subtlety is a difficult variable,” he says. “It comes down to slightly altering the fit of chinos or styling them in a new way. I’m not sure I’d even call it design, I’m making adjustments to clothes that have been around for a long time.”
Take Noah’s new Autumn/Winter collection which drops this week. You’ll find traditional men’s pieces mixed in fun ways. In one look, they paired blue chino shorts with a flannel shirt and a ruffled cardigan, paired with black moccasins and ankle socks. Another pairs a purple hoodie with blue shorts and stunning shiny leather oxford shoes. Many men already have pieces in their closets. “It’s really about encouraging people to lock into their personal style based on how they choose to put the pieces together,” he said.
At J.Crew, Babenzien has the opportunity to bring this vision to a wider audience. The looks in his latest collection for the brand are strongly reminiscent of his work for Noah. From khakis to denim with a herringbone pattern made from Irish wool and alpaca, there’s a variety of patterned glitter. He also brought pieces from his archives, including a cotton roll-neck sweater and a striped shirt with green, brown and orange stripes, both dating to the 1980s.
One question, however, is whether a company as large as J.Crew can thrive in the current fashion industry without encouraging overconsumption. J.Crew has struggled for a decade in part because experts say it has failed to change consumer tastes fueled by fast fashion and social media. For a while, J.Crew ditched its classic, preppy heritage for a more glamorous look designed by longtime creative director Jana Lyons. But this fashion-forward approach didn’t work and sales began to decline in 2014, prompting Leon to leave her post in 2017. In May 2020, the pandemic further eroded sales and caused the already struggling brand to file for bankruptcy. . A few months later, with an infusion of capital from investment firms, J.Crew was able to emerge from bankruptcy. Now, the company’s strategy seems to be to return to making quality basics at prices that are higher than fast fashion but less than luxury. It is unclear whether this approach will generate sufficient returns to satisfy institutional investors.
By bringing in Babenz to lead menswear, J.Crew is showcasing his knack for making classic clothes look fresh and cool – something that Noah has mastered – which will help bring the brand to life. But designing for a small and independent fashion house is very different from designing for a large company for investors. And we’ll have to wait and see if Babenzien’s vision of encouraging J.Crew customers to buy a few clothes they’ll wear for 5 or 10 years comes true.
For his part, Babinzin hopes he can succeed. “Of course, big companies can still do the right thing,” he says. “They just have to choose to do that.”
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