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What I'm saying is that you came into Brooks Brothers well after the decline. I'm not saying this judgementally, as I also first went into their stores well after the decline.
The heyday of Brooks Brothers was from about the early 1900s through 1960s. That's when a lot of the stuff they sold was codified into a classic American look -- sack suit, madras, polo coats, tweeds, Shetland knits, etc.
In 1971, they had 11 stores in major cities, mostly located on the coasts. Only a certain segment of American society shopped at Brooks Brothers at this time, many of them elite, white-collar workers. Business-class professionals. Ivy school graduates, etc. Most people who bought "Ivy Style" clothes bought them from clothiers who looked to Brooks for direction. They didn't even have a Brooks store near them. Brooks Brothers was not accessible to them in either price or geography.
In 1946, Winthrop Holly Brooks, the last member of the Brooks family to own the company, sold Brooks Brothers to a DC-based chain called Garfinckle's. Garfinckle's sold the company to Allied in 1981, and then Allied sold it to someone in 1987 (I can't remember the guy's name, but he held it for about a year). In 1988, Marks & Spencer acquired the company along with an acquisition for a grocery store. M&S wanted to expand both greatly throughout the US.
Many mark this as the start of the decline -- from about the 1990s onwards. This was a period of tremendous expansion and some shifting around for manufacturing. Brooks Brothers expanded its outlets and brought in more foreign manufacturers. TAL, the Asian shirtmaking company, started as a Brooks Brothers manufacturer for outlet goods. They later moved into mainline.
By the time M&S sold Brooks to Retail Brand Alliance (Claudio's company) in 2001, there were 155 stores in US and Japan. This is the period when many StyleForum types would have walked into a Brooks Brothers store, as one was finally open near them.
Today, the company has about 500 locations worldwide -- 250 in the US, about 100 of those are outlets. There are about as many mainline stores as there are outlets. Those outlets are again where many people experience Brooks Brothers.
So it's natural for those shoppers to eventually move on to Bonobos, Suitsupply, Untuckit, Charles Trywhitt, etc. They are deal hunters. (Again, not poo-pooing this demographic, as I'm not a rich, white Manhattan exec who bought BB in the 1970s and don't pretend to be one online.)
The world in which Brooks used to occupy may have moved on. People do not take thier sons into a store and introduce them to their SA. Few people wear suits to work. Many do not care about classic American style -- they want something young, sexy, and often Italian. The internet has made it easier to discount shop. Brooks also has too many store locations to hold on to just a luxury business alone.
Reminds me of a story a J. Press person once told me. I think this person has a very clear eye of what has happened to the market. In the 1950s and '60s, J. Press made a business off selling clothes to students at Harvard and Yale. Business since then has declined. Why? Partly because the people who go to Harvard and Yale aren't the same students in the 1950s. In the '50s, those campuses were largely made up of white males from elite private schools. Today, you have a better gender balance, more international students, and more non-white students. You have kids from different economic backgrounds. Those people did not grow up with the same preconceptions of clothes. They may buy one navy sport coat for special events, but they're not going to wear this stuff exclusively.
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