dear j.crew, i'll never be your best american girl
excavating whiteness in a rollneck sweater
Hello! I’m back with a longform essay about the new J.Crew print catalog (will cut off in email so read in browser). It’s a good one, I promise :)
I’ve seen lots of good business/marketing takes on the catalog, but I’m approaching the conversation from a sociological lens.
Cool story before we begin:
thank you to all my paid subscribers bc you make it possible for me to write a piece that critiqued TRR’s Canal Street project which gained enough traction that TRR’s execs reached out to connect about the points I had raised.
ofc, brand motives are brand motives but it makes me optimistic that real journalism can still exist as an accountability check to brands. I wouldn’t have been able to write that if I were solely relying on big brand deals for income! if this real world impact excites you, consider supporting my work ❤️
Four days into 2023, I eagerly sent a pitch to a publication about the 90s J.Crew resurgence I was observing on social media. I’d recently left my stable public health job in late 2022 and was on my new year’s grindset as a freelance writer.
When this pitch crystalized in my head, I felt like it could land me a dream byline. J.Crew was a beloved mall brand whose glory days helmed by Jenna Lyons and Mickey Drexler were long gone. But mass retail was bouncing back from the effects of the pandemic, and the infusion of new design talent in Olympia Gayot and Brendan Babenzien sparked optimism about J.Crew’s turnaround. Combine that with the cultural backdrop of 90s nostalgia, and I knew in my bones there was a story there.
But the editor declined the pitch. My eyes skimmed past the email, lingering over certain phrases: not sure I find this really convincing…was expecting more actual experts in sourcing vintage J.Crew.
I moved on. This pitch got buried under dozens of other pitches, and never saw the light of day again. Until…
J.Crew announced the return of their print catalog.
Brands are capitalizing on the cultural caché of all things analog. (See: Miu Miu book club summer, Miu Miu vinyl club fall). Fans of the vintage catalogs delighted in the nostalgia of it all. Loafers, barn jackets, cashmere sweaters—all in time for fall.
This jogged my memory: hey…didn’t I pitch something about 90s J.Crew last year?
So I dug up the old pitch. The email exchange. The rejection. And in re-reading my pitch, I recognized something I wasn’t ready to confront back then: I pitched this story because I thought it would sell. I was very anxious about the financial sustainability of freelance writing, and caught in a mental guessing game about what editors wanted. What safer story to sell than one about America’s favorite preppy mall brand on its comeback kid arc, that was most importantly, also *shoppable*?
Chalk this mindset up to the extreme power imbalance between writers and media companies. But I have learned (and grown) a lot since that rejected pitch.
So, this is the story I actually want to write about J.Crew.
I place the print catalog in the context of J.Crew’s history: its founding vision and why its distinctive brand of lifestyle photography continues to dominate #coastalgrandmother and #quietluxury Pinterest moodboards in 2024. From there, I explore:
the assumption of whiteness central to its brand identity
how this white brand identity was cemented in the 80s/90s, and evolved during the obama era to present day
why prep style surges during periods of sociopolitical anxiety
why brands are marketing nostalgia on the precipice of a presidential election
Ultimately, I believe the new catalog plays it safe by marketing an exclusive, white American ideal.
*And yes, the title is a reference to Mitski’s song “Your Best American Girl.”