Banana Republic, not that bad

Originally Posted by Meis

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+ 1,000 Yet most women think they can dress themselves and others well because they read a few mags with ****** "fashion tips" in them. Umm really? I mean its not like J.Crew sells suits and ties and dress shoes, oh wait.... Non-iron dress shirts? who cares. Lots of places don't make non-iron dress shirts. I don't own a single non-iron dress shirt. I'd disagree as to the positioning. BR has plenty of ads showing their models in really ****** excuses for casual outfits, and while yeah the majority of J.crew ads show off their casual stuff a substantial portion of their ads/etc are on their suits and other dress clothes... so I wouldn't say one brand clearly markets itself to casual the other brand to work. They both arguably position themselves as "you can get pretty much all your clothes here" sort of places.
I think the problem is that you're not looking at it from the average person's perspective. Yes, J Crew sells suits, but they are not prominently featured. I've never even seen one (or a pair of slacks) at my local store. The average person is not going to spend hours exploring what they consider a very boring and uniform outfit; they're just going to buy a cheap one and say the hell with it. Of course non-iron shirts aren't necessary. But they are the de-facto apparel for many, many people who need to wear a button down shirt. Take your average newly minted young professional, and he will want something he can throw on in the morning, no fuss. BR offers many, because they are largely oriented towards business wear. J Crew sells none, because they are not selling to that market. I'm not sure what BR is trying to market itself as - I think they're probably having an identity crises, both wanting to sell everyone their first shirt and slacks (profitable now), and also wanting to sell them jeans and madras (potentially profitable). But look, go to the two websites. BR has a guy in several variations of at least business casual. J Crew has a bunch of shaggy guys in raw denim. To someone on SF, who has spent time combing through their entire catalogue, of course it looks like they are the same market, because their product lines overlap. I'm the same way; if I buy a cheap suit, I could see it being a ludlow, but I'm definitely not buying the weirdly-cut BR stuff. But the marketing (that I've seen) is different. But this is really irrelevant to my original point, which is that BR is profitable because people buy work clothes there, and J Crew is profitable because people buy casual clothes there. For whatever reason you want to suppose, I'll bet dollars to donuts that their sales numbers reflect this.

Viewpoints can often be extremely tainted by personal opinion and circumstantial experiences. For ex, your local JCrew doesn't carry any suits and therefore you see JCrew as a casual brand. The fact is they have remarkably similar demographics. Not the most comprehensive and accurate but gives a rough picture. http://www.quantcast.com/bananarepublic.com http://www.quantcast.com/jcrew.com compared to say something like: http://www.quantcast.com/armaniexchange.com http://www.quantcast.com/express.com So the demographics between BR and JC are almost identical. Are we to believe that these same ppl walk into a store that has a higher avg price point and more limited inventory (i.e. requires a more dedicated and conscious shopper). And then for business wear, they walk into BR with a what-the-hell attitude and buy whatever junk suit because it's cheap? I don't believe it's the "average person's perspective" to buy $100 chambray shirts, $150 levis, $500 aldens, $150 timex's, $250 tweed sportcoats for casual wear at JCrew..., and then go to BR to buy blech non-iron dress shirts and fused suits for something as impt as their career. For the most part, many BR shoppers go there because they do believe the brand is THE ****, as opposed to just ****, period. Sure, the stylistic and lifestyle viewpoint of JCrew is more "casual" and lived-in. JC is trying to be a lifestyle brand in the vein of RL, whereas BR simply tries to sell clothes. But trying to establish a clear-cut casual wear vs business wear delineation between the two brands is just silly. BTW, this thread made me curious so I walked into a BR for the first time in a while. Their tailored fit suits are much more nicely cut now. Before they used to be tailored in the waist somewhat but still had ridiculously low armholes. Most of the stuff is still bad IMO. Even their attempts at casual aren't well-executed. The soft washed shirts casual shirts are bad and incomparable to a JC Secret Wash shirt. I'd feel more comfortable in OCBD in a decent fabric. Maybe that's why one would have the opinion that their clothes are more dressy - because in appearance, cut, fabric, style, whatever you want to call it, it's all... how do you say it... maybe stiff and clunky looking? And that's unfortunately what the avg joe associates with being "dressed up".

Originally Posted by a-rock

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BTW, this thread made me curious so I walked into a BR for the first time in a while. Their tailored fit suits are much more nicely cut now.
They couldn't make them look much worse on their website. The guy looks like he has big ol' birthing hips.

Their straight fit pants are pretty sweet for the price.

Decided to give BR a try recently...

- Their slim fit non-iron textured shirts are nice; the rest are kind of crappy
- Their Tailored Fit suit jackets/blazers in 42S fit me perfectly with no alteration
- Their casual and dress pants are all pretty crappy and don't fit me well

I wouldn't buy them at full retail price, but when they are on 40%+ sales, they are worth checking out.

Pretty much the same for me. I've got a few BR items that fit nicely but I don't buy anything unless there's a discount going on.



bellyhungry said:

Decided to give BR a try recently...
- Their slim fit non-iron textured shirts are nice; the rest are kind of crappy
- Their Tailored Fit suit jackets/blazers in 42S fit me perfectly with no alteration
- Their casual and dress pants are all pretty crappy and don't fit me well
I wouldn't buy them at full retail price, but when they are on 40%+ sales, they are worth checking out.

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\thread

I've seen dress pants worth $230 CDN in the store... WTF?

For the price, their shirts are pretty good.

My experiences with them:

-Not a fan of the shirts, at all
-Pants are not bad from the Heritage(no defunct?) and Monogram lines, some good fabric and cuts
-Their ties have gotten worse as time goes on (Used to be made in Italy and have decent widths, now made in China in slim widths)
-Overall, would never pay retail, a great bargain if you can get them on sale with an additional % off of that

The have gotten better recently. Their non iron Grant shirts fit real well and some of the patterns are nice. Much more youthful than can be found at most other brands. Also their modern slim fit pants fit really well too. It is definitely worth checking out when on sale.