Maybe this means I can finally afford one of their suits… not that I’ll ever need to wear a suit again…
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I don’t follow this industry enough to know whether I care about this news. I was married in a Brooks Brothers suit, and wore the same woolen suit for years. Is the company we’re reading about here the same one that made my suit? (I’m pretty sure that, at some point, it was owned by guys named “Brooks” and not “Del Vecchio”.) Getting bankruptcy protection means they’re continuing to make whatever kind of clothes they make now.
If the bankruptcy fails, the creditors will get the assets, a big one of which is the brand “Brooks Brothers”. I will almost certainly be able to buy another Brooks Brothers suit in the future, even if not from Signore Del Vecchio.
I’m pretty sure I don’t care about this news.
This.
I mean, how many shirts and pants does one really need. I have 3 pairs of jeans. They were (relatively) expensive, bought over the last several years. They were made in the USA and will last me likely till I’m dead.
But the same applies to dress shirts/suits. You get a few examples made well and you’re set for a long time. Assuming one maintains the same size…
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I’m a lawyer and while I have friends who work for big firms that still have a “all male associates will wear a suit with a jacket any time they are anywhere a client might see them”, the dress code for the rest of us has been easing up even in law. Even when I’m in the office, I’m far more likely to be in khakis and a casual button-up shirt (often worn untucked) then a suit.
And of course, with covid, I’ve only actually been in the office three times in the last three months and every time I was the only person there. So it’s been jeans and a t-shirt pretty much full time.
So I guess my point is, if Brooks Brothers was counting on the lawyers to save them, that was not a good long-term strategy.
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It all began one fateful day in 1982, when one lone manager said, “How about we try casual Friday?”.
Now, if you own a suit and you aren’t a politician or one percenter, you only wear it for weddings and funerals.
Not a thing to mourn its passing, any more than the buggy whip or the oil streetlamp.
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If I were a one percenter, I’d never get out of my PJs.
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I’m so glad Trumps Super PAC got a bailout and not some american made clothes store
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I hear you and almost agree with you… however, the way this usually plays out is: this time next year you will be able to buy a “Brooks Brothers” suit made (in Vietnam or Honduras) of cheaper, lighter-weight fabric and with shoddier work; it will cost 75%-90% as much as its equivalent did this year, but won’t sell. Very shortly thereafter there will be an extensive Brooks Brothers section at Ross, while the successor company tries to squeeze the last juice out of the brand name; sometime after that the company will file for bankruptcy again, this time under Chapter 13.
I hope I’m wrong, but experience says…
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When has it ever been?
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Bottoms have bottomed?
(Though I guess"bottomed" implies that it’s going back up, so maybe not…)
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Plus, if you waited for sales you could get the $85 shirt for $40-50. Not bad for a shirt that lasts 10-20 years.
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I did all my clothes shopping once a year on Black Friday at outlet malls. For a while I would stop in at the Brooks Brothers outlet store, since I had a nice hand me down BB suit as a child. But after a few times I realized there is just nothing there I like anymore; they seem to have stopped the design process in the 1980s and everything looks like it needs suspenders to complete the look. And because the tailoring is for people who sit at desks all day eating Joy of Cooking meals.
Banana Republic and Calvin Klein were where I got my clothes. Much better tailoring and current style. Now that I have a Dad Bod, I just buy casual clothes at Costco. The tucked shirts that BB sells may never be worn again.
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Considering the fact that many immigrants over the years have altered their names to appear less ‘foreign’ to their new country, how do you know for certain that the original Brooks brothers weren’t really from the Del Vecchio family?
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Apparently the original Brooks was born in Connecticut in 1772. I think this was before the era of Italian immigrants coming to the US and anglicising their names, but I could be mistaken.
When I was (much) younger I used to get my suits from a Jewish tailor on Roosevelt Road but covet the wares in both Brooks Brothers and the high-end Italian stores. Nowadays I mainly wear aloha shirts, but right-wing cultural appropriators are threatening to take that away from me.
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For being the generation that started reaping the rewards of the Reagan years decimating our middle class?
I’m one of the few people on this forum, I think – I know of only one other, for certain – who would know enough about the particulars to ask this follow-up question: WHICH Jewish tailor on Roosevelt?
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Nah. You’re in HI so it should still be fine. But maybe on the mainland? Oh, the poor parrotheads!
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Ruben Myerson.
The guy was a genius with chalk…and if there’s one thing I know, it’s chalk.
I hope so, otherwise I can’t go anywhere that requires a shirt. Not that I’m going anywhere anyway if I can help it.
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That part of the strip is still there, although of course not his store. But that block on that side is the only remnant: most of Roosevelt is now the usual regional/national chains.
Manny’s is still there, around the corner!
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You’re killing me here. I’m 2500 miles from the nearest deli, and at least 4000 miles from the nearest good deli. (Sorry LA!)
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