At first blush, Supreme and J.Crew would seem to have little in common. One is inspired by New York City’s gritty skate culture of the ’90s; the other embraces the preppy style that first emerged at Ivy League colleges in the 1910s.
But Brendon Babenzien, who spent more than decade defining design at Supreme before taking over J.Crew’s menswear department in 2021, sees a distinct through line between them. When done well, both aesthetics should be timeless and resist trends. “Fashion is about getting you to buy more products by convincing you that what you own is no longer relevant,” he says. “But in some ways, fashion doesn’t enter the conversation at [either J.Crew or Supreme]. They’re about how it’s really cool to wear your old clothes.”
J.Crew brought him on last May, a year after it declared bankruptcy. Last month, the brand released Babenzien’s debut collection, which revives simple, unfussy menswear classics from the brand’s archives, like paisley ties, Fair Isle sweaters, and striped Oxford shirts. Fashion critics from GQ to HighSnobeity gave Babenzien high marks for his designs. There’s hope he might steer J.Crew back to its roots as a purveyor of high-quality, affordable classics that made it so successful in the ’80s and ’90s.
Babenzien’s rise coincided with the rise of fast fashion, which now dominates the industry. Pioneers like H&M and Zara built complex global supply chains in the ’90s, relying on low-wage factories in Asia that could pump out fashionable looks at bargain prices. Consumers began to treat their clothes as disposable, and garments are now piling up in landfills at the rate of a truckload a second. To compete, brands across the industry, from Old Navy to Urban Outfitters, have felt the need to churn out hundreds of new styles every season and keep prices low. Over the past five years, Chinese powerhouse Shein has supercharged the business model, updating its website with 6,000 new styles every day, generating $16 billion in revenue last year.
For Babenzien, minimalism isn’t necessarily the answer. He believes it is possible to tap into aesthetics that have stood the test of time, at least over the last few decades. This has been one of his fixations at Supreme and Noah; at both brands, he’s obsessed over creating perfect-fitting hoodies and T-shirts season after season. He now brings the same approach to J.Crew. He points out streetwear and preppy menswear are examples of style born in the United States that have stayed consistent, even as trends have come and gone. In fact, over his career, Babenzien has played a role in weaving these two aesthetics together, creating a preppy-streetwear hybrid designed to be timeless. “There’s a kind of crossover in that they are both classic American,” he says. “The product is more or less what it’s always been.”
Streetwear has been embracing an evolving new country-club aesthetic for some time. But this presents an interesting challenge from a design perspective for a brand as iconic as J.Crew. Babenzien says his goal is not to stray too far from the classic garments, so he sees his role as making very small changes or pairing pieces together in ways that make them look fresh again. From a business perspective, Babenzien believes his job is to keep durable versions of these classics in stock, so customers can round out their wardrobes or replaces pieces that are worn out. “In menswear, subtlety is a serious variable,” he says. “It comes down to changing the fit of a chino very slightly, or styling it in a new way. I’m not sure I would even call it design: I make adjustments to clothes that have existed for a long time.”
By bringing on Babenzien to lead menswear, J.Crew is banking on his prowess for making classic garments seem fresh and cool—which he has mastered at Noah—that will help bring the brand back to life. But designing for a small, independent fashion house is quite different from designing for a large company beholden to investors. And we’ll have to wait and see whether Babenzien will be able to stay true to his vision of encouraging J.Crew’s customers to buy fewer garments that they can wear for 5 or 10 years.
For his part, Babenzien is optimistic he’ll be able to. “Really big companies can still do the right thing,” he says. “They just have to choose to do so.”