Evening Standard - ES Magazine
Drexler’s most famous customer? Michelle Obama has confessed to a habit of jcrew.com surfing
woman, explains: ‘We don’t prescribe a sense of style. You have the style, not the clothes.’
That might sound like the usual ‘look at us, we’re different’ marketing twaddle but the funny thing is, she’s right. In a world of lookalike, cookie-cutter stores, J Crew has staked out genuinely new territory. The Regent Street flagship — fittingly enough, halfway between Bond Street and Oxford Street — is a hip, midprice mini department store that has no real competitors. ‘A lot of people try to copy us. I don’t want to mention any names. But they don’t have our creativity,’ says Drexler.
Drexler may be a new name on this side of the Atlantic but he’s been in our wardrobes for years. He is one of the three most influential fashion guys of modern times. If Giorgio Armani took modern European style global and Ralph Lauren created the world’s first fashion lifestyle brand encompassing everything from pants to furniture, Drexler is the guy who made ‘casual’ aspirational.
It’s hard to credit it now that it has become such a ho-hum retailer, but San Franciscobased Gap transformed the way we all dress. Without Gap there would be no chinos, no cargo pants, no simple affordable grey T-shirts, no hoodies and no dress-down Friday. Drexler is the only CEO to be photographed for the US business ‘bibles’ Forbes and Fortune with his shirt hanging out, and he has been thrown out of the Connaught hotel for — gasp! — wearing jeans. Small wonder the hero of California style has been nicknamed ‘the Steve Jobs of fashion’. He serves on the board of Apple.
The secret of his success? He was born on the wrong side of the tracks. ‘I grew up in the Bronx. I used to remember going to all these fancy stores in Manhattan to run errands or whatever and I felt intimidated, like they did not talk to me because I was from the Bronx. I never want anyone to be intimidated by fashion. Fashion is fun or, at least, should be.’
By rights, Gap should still be top of the pile and J Crew should not have happened. But in 2002 Gap inexplicably fired Drexler after 19 years at the helm, during which time the company’s sales rose from $400 million to $14 billion a year. He needed a job and J Crew, which had been founded in 1983, needed help, and lots of it. It sold preppy duds and had embarked on a tacky franchise expansion in Asia. Drexler closed all the Asian stores, promoted Lyons from head of womenswear to creative director and hired Dutch menswear designer Frank Muytjens, and the trio started afresh.
A new edge emerged. Collaborations with brands such as New Balance, Vans, Timex and Globe-Trotter followed. Soon, J Crew was on the fashion wishlist. Its most famous customers are the Obamas: the first family shop at the store in their hometown, Chicago. Michelle also just opened a stone’s throw from Stella McCartney in Brompton Cross.
‘Men are the new women in shopping,’ he announces. ‘They like style. They like fashion. They want newness, not the same old dumb stuff. The men’s market is moving at lightning speed.’
For a man who is five years past retirement age, Drexler has never been more active. In fact, he’s in such a hurry he confesses he only hires people ‘who walk fast. It’s about energy.’ Like Armani, ten years his senior, he shows no sign of giving up. ‘I’m gonna go on as long as I’m having fun, as long as the customer likes what I do, and as long as the team and the investors like it. I have no plan other than to continue to create.’
Starting right now, it turns out. He leaps up and dives back on to the shop floor, frustrated that the sign directing customers to Crewcuts is still not on the wall. ‘Laydeez!’ he drawls at the sales team. ‘What’s happenin’?’ The merchant in the middle has work to do.