Generations of Style

THE END OF THE ROADMEN

Brooks Roadmen set up their displays at
choice horels and InJor med customers
(lillinaJorJrom any Brooks retail store)

ifthe latest styles. As the numberif

Brooks' rClail Jocatlonssrew, the needJar
the "Trcwelina Rc:presen lali\'e~ dwindled.
BrooLfi nally eliminated the RoacJman
in Ihc lou SCI'cntles.

in japan,' Mike Mansfield , the fo rm er American ambassador to sending out the "Roadman" - the first men's clothier to do so.
japan , said thrcc years ago o n the occasion of thc storc's o pen - Even so mething as seemingly prosaic as sclling o n the road was
ing." Thc carcful planning and partncring paid off: By the late conclucted with particularly Brooksian decorum .When a roadman
Eighties the co mpany would have 30 stores in japan, making cam e to to\'l.'n, no adver tising prcccded him, just an announce-
Brooks Brothers Japan the most profitable part of the business. ment di screetly mailed to local customers. O nce or twice a year,
he would set up shop in an elegant hotel (usually the same one
END OF AN ERA - THE ROADMAN year after year) , where he would display sampl es of Brooks'
current offerings and take orders. He'd remain for a week or so
One unfortunate byprod uct of Brooks Brothers' expansion and then move on , remaining on the road for months at a time.
during this period was their decisio n to eliminate "Traveling
Representati ycs" - those foot soldiers and ambassadors of good What was remarkable about the roadmen wasn't the ir consider-
taste who for eight decades crisscrossed thc heartland for Brooks. able stamina, hut the bundle of skills they brought to the job.
Given Brooks' unique line of clothing and its often idiosyncratic
Since 1903 J as a ser vice to customers living at a distance from and persnickety customers (qualities whi ch \veren't at all confin ed
their stores (whi ch, for the first half of the century, meant any- to Manhattan ), the Brooks Brothers roadman was hands down
where but New York and Boston), Brooks Brothers had been the most versatile performer in retail, a great salesman and much

108 C H ALl.ENGED BY TIl.ENDINESS

more: fitter, credit man, operations and logistics genius, and
trusted wardrobe consultant to many men in many places. As one
of the last remaining roadmen explained, "I'm everything from
a stock boy to a manager." One further skill eventually put them
out of business: The Brooks roadmen functioned informally as
the real estate group for the company, scouting potential sites for
additional stores. The more locations, the less need for the road-
man, until there \vas no need at al l.

A FINAL TIP OF THE HAT TO MR. WOOD

John C. Wood retired as Brooks' president in 1967. In this and BROOKS BROTHERS' PRESIDENT
the previous two chapters, Wood's high standards and notable JOHN C. WOOD
accomplishments have been documented, as have his autocratic
nature, occasional arrogance, cordial but distant treatment of Wood (lift) SUI,ed as Brooks' president
coll eagues, and refusal to suffer fools gladly. T he sum of these
qualities, combined with Wood's ferocity of purpose, may have jor 21 years. He is shown here in
saved Brooks as the company staggered out of World War II, and
without a doubt, he left it stronger. In a 1966 inter view, he stated, ifLondon wit.h the president American
"When you work here long enough, you get bitten by the Brooks
bug." No Brooks president was ever quite so bitten. Upon his ilirlines, 1955.
retirement, he wrote a personal letter to RaymondT.H. Jones,
Brooks'trusted man in London, in which he said , with an
uncharacteristic drop-of-the-mask: "Brooks Brothers has been
my life." He had been Brooks' president for 21 years, longer
than any preSident in Brooks ' history, and "viII be the benchmark

iWagainst which all future leaders should be measured.

CHALLENGED BY TRf.NDINf.SS 109



ibr~ ,

'""' -

1999

5TH AVENUE

BROOKS BROTHERS'
GLASS AND STAINLESS STEEl

FIFTH AVENUE LOCATION
OPENED IN MAY 1999

-iiJ~ t: Lt " ~'3t ~3t"1) ~ ~ -t '/ II 0)1?; L" ~Jl L ~ t1.:r ~ "\

._~,---,,\\,----,, ;J: 19001f.~~---1......LL.L...~~~~~~fJ---....I

Ch17,./itC/'

-6 -

THESERVANT~

MANY MASTERS

BROOKS BROTHERS IN THE

s

COMPE TI TION I S EVERYW H ERE POWER P LAYERS • I NDU STRIAL

STRENGTH CHUTZPAH THIS I S NOT YOUR FATHER'S BROOKS BROTH ERS

BROOKSEASE • FORM FOLLOWS FUNCT I ON H ONG KONG PARACHUTING

IN WHEN PEOPLE STOP WEAR I NG S UIT S AND T I ES, WHAT DO YOU DO?

IT 'S ALL ABOUT THE CLO THING

THE SERVANT OF MANY MAS T ERS 113

I nAmerica, the Eighties began in a recession and would end in another, only to
be followed by a decade of enormous growth and prosperity. This economic
rollercoaster would usher in drastic changes in the tone and texture of cor-
porate America. Meanwhile, businesses both at home and abroad began to think
and act globally with unpredictable consequences. Further, American business
would endure the contractions and distortions of a series of aggressive and often
hostile acquisitions, altering that landscape forever.

Staid, steady Brooks Brothers would find itself in the middle of not one but several
such exchanges, and the results were at best uncomfortable. Within a 2o-year
span, the company would change hands three times and would be forced to
playa role for which it was totally unprepared and unsuited: Brooks became a
commodity, an "investment."

Until this chapter, our history of Brooks Brothers has examined the character of
the company - the qualities which have prompted generations of customers to
look to Brooks for a lifetime of clothing. This chapter, however, looks at Brooks as
a "clothing business," precisely because it was being treated as such. In the final
two decades of the century, Brooks found itself, for the first time in its history,
enmeshed in a turbulent world in which multiple changes of ownership and
increaSingly ruthl ess and mutable market forces would ultimately cause Brooks
to question who it was and why it should exist at all.

l,,1 '4- TH E SERVANT O F .MA N Y MA STERS

TH Ii SE RVANT OF M AN Y MA STERS I I S

A public relations release from the early Eighties claimed, typewriters. Brooks archives are full of executives' odd doodles and
"Competition is everywhere in the clothing industry, but Brooks penci l sketches which wou ld become aels, catalogs, and circulars,
Brothers occupies a most unique position. We do only o ne thing all created at a time when far more sophisticated methods were
basically: deal in traditio nal conservative clothing.That is our at their disposal. But that just wouldn't have been the Brooks way.
specialty, and we stick to it rigo rously. Virtually all other reta il ers
go in several directions at once; we do the opposi te, we sti ck to Brooks had always moved at what might generously be called a
our knitting. and there is our strength." In a world ofheightened deliberate pace. Decisio ns were mad e slowly. Boardroo m chat-
owner expectations, the growing casualization ofAmerican dress, ter must have sounded odd to those o utside this closed culture.
and an un certain and unforgiving retail climate, Brooks would Broo ks' senio r leadership had been the re so long, and possessed
soon find itself in circumstan ces which wou ld make "sticking to such a deep understanding of what made t heir company work,
our knitting" very difficult indeed. tbat what was said at these meetings wasn't as Signifi cant as what
no lo nger needed to be said. Determining what was appropriate
W hile th e company had been o...vned by Garfinckel's for almost for Brooks Bro thers was like preparing a traditional fam ily
3S years, Brooks had remain ed at its cultural core not very difTer- recipe: Key ingredients and procedures were matters of taste
ent from when the company began in ISI8. The parent company, and senSibility, not formula. The elders simply knew when the
itself having cut its teeth serving the carri age trade, had left the soup was "right."
company alone. Until the Eighties, those who inhabited Brooks'
executive offices shared a sensibility whi ch refl ected Virtually all But what happens to the soup when new cooks sudd enly appear
of Henry Sands Broo ks and non e of, say, DonaldTrump. Spencer at the kitchen door ?
Greason, fo r example , began his career in the Newport store
when he was 17 and finished it five decades later as company vice ALLIED BuyS BROOKS
president. Other senior lead ers without the Brooks pedigree
had even developed their own lineage. Owen Winston , who In the early 1980s, Broo ks Brothers remained, as it had for its
was already a vice president when the sto re was purchased by entire histor y. the most profitable menIS clothier in America. That,
Garfinckel's in 1946, was the son-in-law of Francis G. Lloyd, who and its image as "the Tiffany'S of the men's wear busi ness," made
had started with Brooks in 1863 and retired as preSident in 1920. Brooks an irresistible acquisition. Allied Stores Corporation
That relationship alone - and the understandings that cam e purchased the company in September 19S 1 when it bought all
with it - spanned some 90 years of Broo ks'histor y. of Garfinckel's holdings. While the new parent company did not
impose great internal change all the business, All ied did make
After generations of this kind of fraternal leadership, one thing it clear that owning Brooks was all about profitability and place-
was certain : Brooks Brothers didn't do business like any o ther ment. A Brooks store, said an Allied spo kesman soon after the
company. As one senior officer later noted, the company was purchase, "can go into existing store space which opens up , or
" in a bit of a tim e warp and everybody liked that."As late as the locate in the downtown area or be to tally free-standing .... The
mid -Eighties, peo ple at Brooks continued to refer to each other specialty store al so has greater sales productiVity per square foot
as "Mr." and "Mrs. ," and secretaries still worked on electric than the department sto re. Signifi<:antly, it has a lower ceno'al

116 THE SERVANT O F MANY MASTERS

overhead and can be operated more narrowly and deeply." Prior STAYING FOCUSED
to Allied, this kind of language was rarely, if ever, spoken at 346
Madiso n Avenue. Somebody was fiddling with the recipe. DW'ing this period , Brooks was fortunate to have Frank Reilly at
the helm. Having first worked for the company in the Fifties, Reilly
ACCELERATED EXPANSION understood this unique and somewhat idiosyncratic culture, yet
he was forward-thinking enough to know it was better to cut wood
As the above quotation suggests, Alli ed accelerated the expansion with a sharp ax than a dull o ne. Despite the distractions of new
plan initiated some years before by Brooks' CEO Frank Reilly. ownership and expansion , Reilly managed to keep the company
From ' 975 to 1980, Reilly had already doubl ed the number of focused on what it did well.
Brooks stores from 13 to 26.[n early 1982, Reilly announced an
initiative to create 20 m ore stores within the next five year s. One area in which the company was doing in creaSingly well was
women's clothing. Although granted a token nod since the late
Prior to Allied, Reilly's ex pansion had been comparatively incre- Sixties, by 1980 it had become a full-A edged divis ion and the
mental, and hence more suited to the Brooks mindset. Many fastest growing department at Brooks. ReAecting this ne\v inter-
of the issues surrounding Brooks' expansion had always centered est, the company produced its first wo men 's catalog that same
upon its identity as a maker as well as m er chant. More stores year. Brooksgate, the company's entry-level label for the younger,
required greater manufacturing capacity, hence a greater challenge more fashion-conscious mal e custo mers, also co ntinued to
to maintaining quality and managing distribution, a chall enge attract a robust clientele.
Brooks had never had to face. Further, the company had always
maintain ed a "Aagship mentality," wherein additional stores were As had been the case for generations, its best-selling shirt con-
thought of as appendages of Madison Avenue. Its early ventures tinued to be the oxford "Polo"button-down; its best-selling
outside Manhattan - Ne\\lJort and Palm Beach - amounted s\veater, the solid- color Shetland. In 1982 , when it remod eled
to little more than whimsical conveni ences for vacationing cus- its Boston store, the co mpany retained a clear vision of itself:
tomers: effortlessly opened and shut down w ithout any sense "The top Aoor of Brooks Brothers in Boston , like all Aoars of all
of failure or controversy. Despite the co mpany's enormous suc- the Brooks Brothers sto res, is paneled in mahogany and mirrors
cess, it had taken Brooks' leadership almost 100 years before it and thickly carpeted. It is sedate, dignified, and quiet. There is
decid ed to establish a sales office in Boston, and 14 years beyond an almost religiOUS hush."
that before its full-scale store opened on Newbury Street.
Emerging fashion trends of the mid-Eighties, however, represented
From the outside, such lethargy might raise a cr itical brow. But a sensibility quite the opposite of Brooks philosophy : a sense that
it was just Brooks being Brooks - quite comfortable with no clothes should reflect, even advertise, one's individuality. Clothing
other business plan than that of its founder. Under new owner(s), becam e, as fashion historian Alan Flusser points out, "badges of
maintaining this sensibility would becom e increaSingly difficult. communi cation. Masculine attire was swept up in the quest for
How can the company retain its culture and identity - "stick to broader social freedoms ; conformity came to be r egard ed as
its knitting" - with So or more stores on the hori zon? almost an infringem ent of personal liberty. In the image-oriented

TH E SERVANT OF MANY MASTERS 11 7



GIANNI AGNELLI

BROOKS BROTHERS C U STOMER

K NOWN T O W EAR:
AGNELLI WAS FAMOUS FOR THE LOOK OF CASUAL ELEGANCE HE CREATED BY "CUS T OMIZING " THE
BROOKS LOOK. AMONG OTHER CHOICES, AGNELLI OFTEN WORE HIS WATCH OVER T HE CUFF OF HIS
BROOKS SHIRTS OR LEFT H I S BUTTON-DOWNS UNBUTTONED . ON HIS YEARLY TR IP TO BROOKS, AGNELL I
ORDERED HIS SHIRTS BY TH E DOZENS. HIS FAVORITES: BLUE (N~ 3), WHITE (N ° 10), AND ECRU (N ? 6).

G I ANN I A G N E LL I was for decades the scion of Italy's Fiat emp ire.

eighties , men dressed to look wealthy and powerful. By the b lckily, Campeau's rash, shoot-from-the-hip financial shenanigans
Nineties, sophisti cated men loo ked upon fashion as another all owed him little tim e to medd le. Cash-strapped after bu ying
means of discourse in an info rmation-driven world." Alli ed , Cam peau managed from a distan ce, prefe rring to work
his magic o n gullible investment bankers w illing to help him bag
The "po'.ver players" who dominated the New York business and his seco nd trophy chain: Federated Department Stores. To do so,
investment banking world of the Eighties preferred the edgier he needed to raise some up-front cash, and Brooks Bro th ers was
(and more self-promoting) styles and labels of Europe. "Today, Campeau's bright shiny object.
,,,,hen fashion is associated w ith the avant-gard e and the cutting
edge, with the flouting of conventi on and the primacy of seLf- M A R KS & SPENCE R
expression, it is hard to imagine a ti me when fashion had more
to do widl virtue than with lice nse, with the commomveal Campeau made it clear that he would forego th e Federated
rather than the indi viduaL" Whil e thi s impulse didn 't dominate purchase unl ess be was able to sell Brooks. He fo und a more-
men 's clothing, the market was beginning to respond to this tllan-willing buyer in Mar-ks & Spencer, the venerabl e British
divergent sensibili ty. depa rtment store chain which acquired Brooks Bro thers in
April 1988 .
CAMPEAU
After 14 mo nths under Campeau, Brooks felt some relief at being
Brooks Brothers sur vived its firs t new owner of the Eighties o\vn ed once again by a fellow clothing merchant. In 1894, Michael
relati ve ly intact. By mid -decade, Brooks had roughly 50 sto res Marks and To m Spencer opened their first "Marks & Spencer
domesti cally and seven in Japan . Business remained strong and Penny Bazaar," which would , by the time it purchased Brooks,
well ahead of o ther men's retail o perations. In the rapid mergers grow into a chain of 264 stores in the United Ki ngdom, 10 in
and acquisitions climate of the mid -Eighties, Brooks continued Europe, and 262 in Canada. Marks & Spencer was li kely the
to be a trophy catch. most profitable retailer in the world at the time. Fur ther, unlike
Campeau, it was clear that Marks & Spencer intend ed to make
Robert Campeau was a medium -sized Canadian real-estate a permanent imprint on the American market, and therefore
developer w ith industri al-strength chutzpah. With no experience was unlikely to use Brooks as a glossy investment.
either on Wall Street or in the retai l business, he briefly became
one of the biggest and most aston ishing leveraged-buyout suc- All this was true , but the fit was not quite so hand -in-glove.
cess stories of the era. He managed to borrow some SII billion First, M&S had no experien ce in high-end clothing. (O ne
- with Virtually no money down - to buy two ofAm erica '5 analyst described Marks & Spencer as "an upscale vers ion of
biggest depar t ment store chains, dle first of which was Allied Woolworth 's.") Second, a large majority of its appa rel o peration
Stores. In December 1986, Brooks Brothers suddenly fowld was in women's wear, a business characterized by high turnover
itself hanging in a new trophy case. Given Campeau 's proclivities, and frequ ent style changes. While M&S knew how to market
Brooks must have felt like an o rphan, subj ect to the whims of a "today's" £5 brassiere, the question remained how it mjght
distant and rather erratic foster parent . handl e $500 blazers whose styling hadn 't changed for much

1 20 THE S ERVAN T O F MA N Y ~IA STE R S

of a century. A final factor, however, would cast the longest MARKS & SPENCER
shadow: Marks & Spencer had always grown organically, by adding
stores or expanding existing ones, and had neve r done an out- (abon!) Storefront in Manchesur, 1898.
right co rporate acq uisition. Despite its massive holdings and a (lift) '!!arks &..Sptnurl Londonfiasrhip
chairman , Lord Rayner, bent on internationalizing the company, store, ~The Arch,"opened in 1930.
M&S was largely a parochial business more comfortable on the
High Streets of Marlborough and Manchester than on Madison THE SERVAN T OF MANY MA STE RS 1 21
Avenue in Manhattan.

Yet more serious Guestions had to do with a difference in the
two cultures. From the outset, a touch of arrogance flavo red its
relationship with Brooks. Marks & Spencer made it clear that
business was going to be conducted according to its own policies
and procedures. A senior M&S official stated at the time of the
purchase, "We're not just a UK success. We're already a global
success .... And in all those stores it is the same items which sell
wel!." Well, none of "those stores" sported a sheep on its shin -
gle, and therein would lie the rub.The new parent com pany
made little or no attempt to understand the admitted ly fusty but
nonetheless purposeful ways of the Brooks business. in conver -
sations with numerous Brooks executives from this per iod, the
same phrase would be repeated: "They wouldn 't listen."

Marks & Spencer had paid dearly to aCGuire Brooks; most analysts
claimed they paid far too much. To prove them wrong, M&S was
about to unleash an avalanche of change on th e Broo ks organiza-
tion. Within that insular world, a proclivity toward change had
never been considered a virtue, and despite two new owners in
seven years, Brooks Brothers had managed to keep its culture
relatively intact. In 19S6 , Brooks' then-president John C. Wood
told The Ne w York Times, "To be perfectly frank , whenever we
contem plate changing anything around here, a perceptible shudder
goes through the store." Under M&S, there would be a lot of
perceptible shuddering.

TH E SURPRISE OF BROOK S BROTHER S Brooks was once again newsworthy. Prior to tins moment, said
Newsweek, Brooks Brothers had been "the last holdout against
Marks & Spencer's first move \\'as a massive 1989 program focused the 1980s 'if you've got it, fl aunt it ' menta li ty." The Daily News
on market an d customer di versifi cation .Th en -Presid ent W illiam Record commented, "From updated Ivy League sack sui ts to
Roberti told The Financial Times, "If we wan t to be prepared to bulk}, patterned s"veaters and weekend ''lear, the store has moved
deal with the future, we clearly need to update our strategy and into the Nineties." "The message is loud and clear," ad ded The
our mix .We want to continue to satisfy our old customer, bu t we Wall Street Journal. "This is not your father's Brooks Brothers."
feel there are also othe r groups of people we'd like to attract."
Entitled "The Surprise of Brooks Brothers," the program's sym- WHO ARE BROOK S' C U S TOM E R S?
bolic centerpiece 'vas a $7 million facelift of the flagship store.
In addition to brighter lighting (and indeed, the fl agship was leg- But if it's not "your fath er 's Brooks Brothers," then w hose is it?
endary for its poor lighting: Industrialist Andrew Mellon insisted In an article about Brooks' bold changes, an executive pointed
on reviewing potential purchases out on the sidewa lk before to a young man ,vith "slicked back hair and loud striped shirt" who
buying them). the m ost remarkabl e aspect was the installation was sampling a ribbed cardigan :"That's a new customer. We would
of escalator s in the center of the first floor .That decision proved neve r have had tilat sor t of custom er before."Throughout the
not only r emarkable but also indi cative: Those escalator s replaced earl y stages of this repositioning, the question which linger ed
both inside and outside the business was whether this "new" cus-
a highly profitable shirt wall. tom er could co-exist with Brooks' Westchester~and-Wall Street
regular s. Noted The New York Times:" ... one m an 's freshening up
"I don 't see th e suit business co ming back," claim ed a senior is an other 's chaos." One custom er lam ented , "There was always
executive at the time. "The life-style change we're seein g now that feeling of familiarity, o f knowing just w here the various
is perm ane nt ." T he new st ore layout r efl ected tius presumption. items were and what floors they were on. And I think that was
The entire second floor, once a provin ce of pinstripes, was now good . It will not be as familiar or as hom ey any mor e."
filled with sportswear, which had been expanded from 14 percent
to 40 percent of the store's total offerings. Women's clothing, "We can 't run o ur busin ess on a ss -year-old man w ho wear s a
which used to share a Floor with the boys' department, now had three-button Brooks Br others suit and only comes in twice a
a Floor of its own . Brooks' fa m ed cardigan sweater s - and much year," claimed Sir Richard Greenbury, Marks & Spencer's new
else, including unden-vear - were removed from the di screet chairman .What Greenbury didn 't understand was that that m an
glass cases \",hich had housed them for 171 years. like ly bought several suits on each trip, and had been doing so
since his college days. Could Brooks Brothers run its business
On the evening of the grand opening, Brooks Brothers indeed without him ?
surpri sed many - and must have sent some regular customers
to the respirator - by staging its first fashio n show, compl ete
with live male and female models strutting suede jeans and
miniskirts. After generations of restraint , even the ad copy
became hip and cheeky: "How can you be a Wall Street hot shot
without at least one Brooks Brothers suit in yow· portfolio?"

122 THE SERVANT OF ~IANY MASTERS

I N NOVATIO NS : THE " NE W" NINETIE S
W A RDROBE AND BROOK S EA SE Brooks Brothers'joclls in the Nineties
on a nell', JounBer and moreJashion-
As Brooks moved ~ o r w as pushed - into the Nineties, the consciolls customer is evidenced in this
company continued its attempt to embrace a more di ver se cataloB shot. The question which 1in-
range o f custom er s while also m eeting the needs of its regular s. Bered both inside and outside the com-
Brooks Brothers' subdu ed m etamorphosis included Hermes- pany was whether this nell' customer
esque neckwear, stylishly faded sports shirts and stirrup pants could co-exist with Brooks' more tradi-
hanging unobtrusively alongside the repp ties, button- downs tion -bollnd reali/ars.
and other signature m er chandise.
TH E SERVANT 01' MANY MASTERS 123
W ithin its traditional clothi ng line, Brooks in trod uced its highly
innovative suit separates p rogram in 1992 call ed "Wardrobe,"
J ust pri or to its acqui sit ion by Marks & Spencer, Brooks closed
its Brooksgate div ision and soon realized i t needed to rep lace its
introdu ctor y sui t offering. In late 1988 Brooks began to expl ore
the idea of selling matching pants and jackets separately. Brooks
knew the conce pt was viable: M&S had already built a tremen-
dous sui t separates business and could walk Brooks through the
Fu ndam entals.

The key chall enge was to deve lop the fab ri c technology 'Nh ich
coul d guarantee th e level of qual ity ex pected by Brooks
custom ers. The com pany bad already created such a fabri c in
conjunction with a Swedish manu facturer in 1963, and improved
upon that ex isti ng techno logy to enable them , by 1992, to pro-
duce a rughly successful an d profitable wor sted wool suit sepa-
rates program. At that time, War drobe was probably the largest
and most tec hnically sophisticated sui t separates program i.n
the United States, an d was subsequent ly expanded to include
tuxedos, cotton cloth ing an d BrooksEase.

BrooksEase itse lf was an extraordinar y innovation . Customers
were seeking a suiting capable o f standing up again st increas ing
amounts of business travel. C reating such a garm ent woul d not
prove easy: It had to resist wrinkJes 'while both in the suitcase as
well as when embodied and crammed into economy class while

CO LORFUL AND CASUAL- also maintaining Brooks' standards of high quality and comfort.
AND A LON G WAY FROM HOME Brooks was soon able to offer a loa-percent worsted wool fabric
In response to "Casual Fridays," Brooks whi ch had natural elasticity in both the warp (vertical) and weft
apparel in Ihe Nlner1esfeacured coloau f (horizontal) of the cloth. These new BrooksEase suits perfonned
and whimsical ties, I'orsio/ jackelS and its remarkably and were soon introduced , like Wardrobe, as match-
ing separates.
own line ifjeans.
"Form fo llows function" had always driven Brooks' innovations,
1 2 4 T H E S ERVANT O F MAN Y MASTERS and BrooksEase was no exception. In creating this high perfo rm -
ance, comfortable garment, Brooks \vasn't trying to increase
sales as much as solve its customers' pro blems. BrooksEase and
Wardrobe succeeded admirably.

PLAYING CATCH - UP

Whil e such innovations reinvigorated the company's suit offer-
ings, it djdn 't address the stark fact that fewer businessmen were
required to wear suits at all. "Casual Fridays" were increasingly
becoming the wo rkplace standard , and Broo ks needed to bolster
its sports\vear lines . In 1992, the company introduced the more
casual "Friday" shirt, along with items like whimsical ties, soft,
pigment-dyed shirts, and varsity jackets. That same year, Broo ks
introduced its own line ofjeans.

Whil e Brooks' new sportswear emphasis clearly responded to
strong trends in the marketplace , it did not guarantee success .
For ']5" years, Brooks Brothers had never "col11peted." Identifying
itself as a spor tswear company required that they not only com -
pete , but compete in a fo reign arena. An executi ve of the period
admitted that spo rtswear was a to ugh sell at Brooks, because
the company had to face "everyone else wh o is in the business."
Further, competito rs specializing in sportswear adjusted more
nimbly than Brooks, leaVing the company hamstrung by haVing
to Simultaneously re- identify itself whH e also playing catch-up.

--- ...

I I - -, - - ....,..._- - ---- - - --

-

NEW STORES FOR NEW C U STOM ER S - BR OOKS BROTHERS IN JAPAN

Throughout its long history, Broo ks Brothers had always been a Ukl! many thinas qUintessentially
"destination store." Its stolid, clubby buildings - designed to American, Brooks Brothers was VI!')'
look and feel the same wherever they stood - always suggested II'd/ recei,·ed in Japan . Thcirfio9shfp
that the loyal customer should co me to it, not it to them. While store in Aayama openr:d in ' 979.
Brooks ' mall stores af the late 19705 already represented a mod - B)' '989, 29 Stores accompanied it.
est exception to thi s stance , the co mpany 's desire to reach new Si.uy-clI·oE,r ' 997. (belal11 A Brooks
and different customers prompted it to think morc creatively Brothers colalas in Japanr:se.
about size and placement.
AOYAMA FLAGSHIP STORE, '979
In 1991, Brooks o pened its first of a series of outlet stores. T he
company saw two compelling advantages. First, those who fre-
qu ent ou tlets rarely venture downtown, so placement within
the huge ly popu lar outl et malls mad e sense. Second, the com -
pany had always contended with overr uns and excess piece
goods in both their factories as well as stores, and thus benefited
from having a li teral outl et for such items. Broo ks outlets were
an immediate success. By '994, in add itio n to its)"8 regular-
price stores, the co mpany was operating 26 ou tl ets, whi ch by
that tim e had become the fastest growing part of the busi ness.

In a separate 1992 initiative, Brooks began to ex plore the suit-
abili ty of smalle r store sizes within its regu lar- price chain.
Until thi s point, Brooks' destinatio n stores stood at around
' 5,000 square feet, appro pri ate for downtown locations sli ch
as Washin gton or Houston but unWie ldy and expensive fo r
Paramus Mall .The ne\'I' "prototype stores" were conSid erably
small er, and offered what one executive eu phemized as an "edited
assor tment" of items found downtown. The resulting eco no mi es
of scale allowed Brooks to entcr another aggressive expansion
program in 1997, when Marks & Spencer al1l10wlced a plan to
commit $25 mil Uon a year over the next three years to open 14
stores annually, half orthe prototype model and half as outlets.

THE SE ltvANT OF MANY ,',IA ST E RS 12)

INTERNATIONAL BROOKS
Brooks Brothers has over 160 stores (retai1
and outlet) throuohaut rhe United States.

it boasts oveT 65 stores in Japan, with still

more locatians in Hans Kano, Chino,

Taiwan, Sinoapare and Itary,.

126 THE SERVANT OF MANY MASTF:RS

Brooks' expansion reached into Asia as well. At the time of compani es sold clothing, th ey stood at the opposite ends of
"The Surprise of Brooks Brothers" in 1989, the company oper- the enter prise, and required different technology. Brooks' high
ated 29 stores in Japan; by 1997 , Brooks had 62. That same year, margin, low-turnover business required far less of the up-to-
the company entered into an agreement with Dickson Concepts the-minute inventory statistics whkh much of the M&S-imposed
of Hong Kong to open and operate Brooks Brothers franchise technology was intend ed to track. "Their systems were deSigned
stores in Southeast Asia. It was a sensible partnership: Brooks for an operation turning ove r 20,000 brassieres a week.That
enjoyed enor mous brand recognition thro ugho ut Asia, and wasn't Brooks," remarked one Brooks executive. Further, Brooks
Dickson already boasted a sophi sticated international retailing had built its business selling classic clothing and feh little need
network in most major Asian markets. In March 1998, Dickson to track style trends and develop forecasts.
o pened Broo ks' first store in Hong Kong, with a second fo llow-
ing soon thereafter. The argument isn't that Brooks didn't need updated technology;
the company had been neglectful in this area, and with a rapid
BACK STAGE expansion under way, more sophisticated mechanisms were
necessary. Just not these mechani sms. It was the techno logical
While change characterized much of the pub lic face of Brooks equjvalent of trying to play chess on a backgammon board:
Brothers during the first half of th e Nineties, much more was The pieces co uld do many things in several directions, but to
taking place backstage. no sensible end. At the cost of millions, the M&S system was
eventually junked.
Brooks Brothers had always kept infor mation technology at
arm's length .When Brooks President Francis Lloyd took office PARACHUTING I N
in 1903, the company possessed no adeUng machines. Because
Lloyd could add colwnns of four-digit figures at a glance and The fact that Marks & Spencer people never fully understood
failed to sec why others should have difficulty doi ng it, the Brooks was hardly due to neglect. Indeed, a large cadre of M&S
company remained without them unti l his retirement in 1920. executives floated through the Brooks offices thro ughout the
M&S, unburd ened by such predi spositions, and in fact so me- Nineties. They were there to monitor and protect the company's
what enamored of columns and sum s, quickly tr ipled Brooks' investment, but this kind of oversight left little room for inde-
investm ent in software and systems. pendent decision-making by those Brooks executives who best
understood the company.
The most telling aspect of Brooks' upgraded technology was
how much it reflected Marks & Spencer and how little it reflected Further, M&S functionaries often (to quote an M&S executi ve)
Brooks. M&S had always been a low- margin , high-turnover "parachuted in" - performing short tours of duty in New York
business, and thus benefited from systems which could track before rotating back to Lo ndon , making it yet more diffi cult for
inventory and manage distribution. One might argue that Brooks those from the parent company to learn t he business and make
Brothers could have benefited fro m learning a little about tech- informed decisions. CEO Bill Roberti worked under the eJjrect
nology, but it is equally true that M&S would have reaped the scrutiny of four different M&S main board directors in his seven
greater benefit by learning more about Brooks. While both years leading the compa ny. An M&S executive later admitted,

THE SERVANT OF MANY MASTERS 127

THE GOLDEN FLEECE IN THE OVAL OFFICE : PRESIDENTIAL BROOKS

FORO AN D HI ROHITO , 1 914
(riahL) President Gerald Ford piaured
lI'earina a Brooks Brothers tuxedo while
areetinajaponcsc Emperor Hirohito.

Virtually el'ery President since Uncoln possessed a substantial Brooks YA LTA CONFE RENCE, 1945
wardrobe. Lincoln bought the overcoatJor his Second Ina uBural and (above) Franklin Delano Roosel'clt, wear-
many other articles at the Grand Street store, wearinB hJor his ina his Brooks Brothers cape, sits with
inaug uration and againfive weeks later when he was assassinated. Il'inston Churchill andJoseph Stalin.
PR ES I DENT W ILLI AM JEFFER SON
Theodore Roosel'elt, Ulysses S. Grant and Woodrow Wi lson all were CliN TON , 199 2
(lift) President Clinton wears a Brooks
clad in Brooks Brothers suits when they took their oaths ?fcdfice.
Brothers suedejacket, asUrfrom his
The great Navy cape worn by Franklin Dela no Roosevelt in 1945,
when he met Churchill and Stalin at Yalta, also carried the Brooks wife, Hillal)'.
label. For manyyears, Brooks Brothers made theirJamous hiBh
"Hoover" collars almost exclusivelyJar President Herbert Hoover, ABRAHAM LI NCO LN,
until late in life when he switched to collar-attached shins. Hoover ca.1864- 1865
also hod union suits custom made ofD.&.J. Anderson broadcloth at (oppoSite) Lincoln 's Oll.'rCOO£, sholln
here, was purchasedfrom Brooks Brothers'
Brooks Brothers. Brooks charsed him only S 10-$ 12 each - a small Grand Street Store. It was $l'orn at his
second inauaurorion and, sadly, at his
omountfor such custom sen'ice. One Brooks execuUI'e qUipped aC the assassination onlj:fi n~ weeks later.
time, "This is a service we extend to all ex-Presidents."

128 THE SERVANT OF MANY MA STERS

•

•

.. •

•

\

QUALITY, VALUE AND "M&S always had a Director upstairs and no one knew what that
CUSTOMER SERVICE meant." Roberti spent far too much time and energy incorporat-
Many qfBraaks Brathers ' care values, ing (and educating) new M&S peopl e onto his executive team,
such as those expressed in this adFcrtise- only to lose them, often within months. Further, each new regi~
mentJram the Fifties, were se\'erelj' tested ment parachuted in with new make-an-impression id eas or fresh
as the campany oHcmpted to became marching order s from London. One M&S executive later
mare ;'comemporor)," in the Nineties. remarked , "There were so many ideas - som e of them contra-
dictory - that we never learned anything before new initiatives
THERE IS NO PRICE TAG ON were introduced. And London expected them to be acted on." \
THE MOST VALUABLE THING WE SELL Such lack of coherence was particularly harmful as the company
launch ed into its outlet and prototype initiatives. "I had a totally I
Our uncompromising standards have come to be ac- green team at th e very time when we 're about to undergo
cepted by many men as the measure of what constitttteS the biggest expansion in company history," noted Roberti later.
Good Clothing. They are the all-important intangiblea
that go into the cut, materials and workmanship 6f TH E ASPIRATION FACTOR
everything bearing the Brooks Brothers labtl. They add
up to the most valuable thing we sell, •• but they have In the mid -N in eties, Marks & Spencer remain ed und er scrutiny
no price tag. They have nothing to do with peiae•.•.• back home fo r buying Brooks at a steep price and was determined
but the fact that they are there has everything 'to do to prove it had mad e the right decision. Despi te new product
with every article in our stores. lin es, new technology and vast expansion - or perhaps because
of them - Brooks' performance ...vasn't meeting expectations.
0 111' Own Male Redy-MiUU SuiJ.s: In response, M&S brought in a new CEO in 1995" >Joseph R.
Regular ~l8jghlS,from$IJSj TrDpiUls,from$IIS Gromek, whose charge was clearly to increase the bottom line
by both accelerating the programs already in place and more
Our S~,jlll Order 'JrDpicaJ Suits, from $140 importantly, cutting costs.
0111' ''346'' Suits, from $100; 7ropi(IJiJ, from $90
Marks & Spencer, always an excellent operator w ith a keen eye
JSTAIUSHID 111' for cost control, had focused on cutting costs from the beginning,
but they were slow to comprehen d that, within Brooks' culture,
~cilP~ there was a pri ce to pay. Stated Business Week: ('To cut costs, Marks
& Spencer install ed co mputer system s to mOllitor inventory and
C~~@D ensure tim ely distribution, but over the years it has also drasti-
cally r edu ced the number of floor p er sonnel. So, while the store
~tn~ Ir ]\3oys furnishil\gs. ~.ts Ir$h". may always have lo ts of bl ack socks in stock, the personal atten-
tion customers used to receive has all but disappeared."
346 MADISON AVENUE, COR. 44TH ST., NEW YORK, N. Y.. I00.17

III BROADWAY, "EW YORK

BOSTON' l'1TI'SBURGH' CHICAGO' SAN FMNCISCO' :LOS ANGELES

130 THE SERVANT OF MANY MASTERS

By the mid -Nineties, the three pillars upon which Brooks had and choices, incidentally, often co nflicted with those of Brooks'
built its reputation ~ quality, var iety and customer se r vice ~ veteran buyers - would o nly drive it farther afield. It was thj s
were all starting to suffer. deSign er-driven sensibility which seemed so cocksure that in
Brooks' new self- portrait, Destiny lay swathed in purple gingham.
One of Gromek's key initiatives was to drive down the average
age of the Brooks customer. In order to attra ct younger buye rs, It mjgbt be an appropriate mo ment to describe how Bmoks made
the co mpany had to: o ne, give them what they wanted (",,,hj ch such decisions in its previous 17S yea rs. On a trip to Euro pe, a
wasn't suits and tics); and two, offer such articles at affo rdable buyer of 20 years' ex peri ence would have bee n introduced to
prices. Brooks had never before positioned itself as a place something interesti ng by a supplier who had worked with Brooks
amona many others where one might buy a golf shirt and a pair for a generation or so. The buyer would bring th e item back to
of pants. One aspired to wear Brooks clothing, and the price and Madison Avenue, where he would co nsult a salesman or two ~
quality it guaranteed informed that aspiration . Offering mer- each with, say, 30 yea rs' experi ence. The question posed to said
chandi se of the same type and quality as could be fo und in many sal es men \vould never be, "Can we se ll it?" but rather"vVould
o ther stores eliminated that essenti al, aspirat ional clement. our custom ers like it?" If th e voice of th e sales floor answered in
Further, Brooks had ahvays attracted the young, aspirationa l cus- the afnrmative , Brooks had a new prod uct. Such a process ulti -
tomer by o ITering an entry-level sub -brand , like LIni versity Sho p mately leaves the customer to deter mine the merchandise. A team
and, later, Brooksgate. But Brooksgate was gone, and with it that of 20 people isolated in a design shop creating what they liked
sensible avenue which had introduced th e yo unger custom er to could no t be more removed from that feedback loop which had
a life time of Brooks Brothers. proved so reliable fo r so lo ng.

0FROM LD- FASHIO N ED OUT OF THE CLUB

TO CURRENT FA SHIO N Like the clothing of the N ineties, the stores were redeSigned
as well, the purpose of whi ch was to create "less of a fee ling of
Instead of using Brooks' traditional avenues to attract and keep a pri vate, and intimidating. men's club." Refl ecting the 1989
younge r custo mers, th e company's new efforts at "brand refurbi shing of the Madison Avenue flagship, stores were furni shed
repos itioning" call ed for yet trendi er styles in both sportswear ,vith brighter lighting and lighter wood fixtures; merchandise
and ta il ored clothing. One of Grom ek's first moves was to install was removed from cases to al1 0w direct custo mer access; and
a design team to 'Iensure consistent, relevant, modern produ ct store fron ts were arranged to feel more accessible to the side-
offerings" ~ among which were purple g ingham shirts and walk ambler.
turqUO ise-striped ties. And while the company cont inued to sell
white oxford shirts, "we don 't shO\", them at the fro nt door." The IllOst indicative change to the loo k of a Brooks store
occurred in 1999: "Last month on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue,
Until this point, the company whi ch invented the sack suit had Brooks opened ... a futuristic two-level, glass-walled , stainJess
never needed a "design tea m _" The rapid, drastic changes of the steel architectura l wo nder, beari ng little resemblan ce to the
last few years had already driven Brooks far from its core in classic
tailored clothing. Having a team of des igners - whose tastes

TH£ SEIWANT OF MANY MASTERS 131

iil:; THE NEW YORKER CARTOONS

Brooks Brothers became such a poweiful icon that cartoonists
arThe NewYorker often rqerred [0 thefirm and its customers
[0 Bently pokefun at the "American EstablishmeDL'"

1 32 THE SE RVANT OF MA NY MA$TEkS



dark wood fixt ures at its Madi so n Avenu e sto re." The event fea ~ of Brooks' innovatio ns over the years had stemm ed rrom those
tured a "notorious drag quee n" nam ed Lady Bunny, who in tro - relation ships, the company's offer ings were becoming, as one
duced "the very hip club singer Ultra Nate ." No other occasio n executive described it, "homogeni zed ."
could more aptly illustrate how far the adaman tly willip Broo ks
Brothers had strayed from its fo rmer self. While the exact clubs T hi s homogenization mani fested itself in less selection and vari -
where Ultra Nate pli ed her trade are unknown , one doubts her ety. Broo ks had always been known for the opposite : A custo mer
songs supplied post~luncheon merrim ent at the Un.io n League. needing a 46 Extra Long knew Brooks woul d have a surprisingly
wide select ion. Marks & Spencer 's mindset - and the e labo rate
But the traditiona list sensibility no longer gover ned decisio ns backroom technology supporting it - focused on what sold
at Brooks. Like the white shirts they had purchased for years, and Cl ui ckly eliminated ,,,hat didn 't. The smaller prototype stores,
Brooks regulars illllst have felt in creasingly unwel come at the v\l ith their limited sGuare footage, simply co ul dn 't carry th e
front door. Of th e 1996 autu mn catalogue, o ne newspaper wide va riety whi ch the Brooks customer had g rown to expect .
wrote, "Gone arc the mature, somber figures o r yesteryear. In "If a clistom er came in wa{lting a blazer, we o nl y had one blazer
their place , three smiling lad s and a lass arc lounging agai nst a at one price /' a veteran sales man lam ented. "We no longer had
convertible. Their shir tsleeves arc casually roll ed up. Collars are any variety in tailo red clothing.The customer wa s disillusioned."
undone. Ties have been yanked loose. One fe ll ow has hi s shir t
tail hanging out. Hair is to usled." In the sto re displays, "Many Further, the radically skevved merchandise mix conFused both
of the shirts ... were unbutton ed at the neck and shown with sal esman and custo mer. "Customers would come to me and ask,
a loosened tie - a calcu lated g rubbiness, as if the manneCluins ' What 's go ing o n here ?' an d I'd tel l them , ' I' m just as barned as
had pulled a collecti ve all nightcr." yo u are , Sir.' They'd complain that the Guali ty wasn't what it
used to be, but what could I say?" remarked a long-time sales
QUESTION S OF Q U AL IT Y associate. "These were smart people. We'd edu cated theJ'1l ove r
the years about Brooks and quality, so I couldn 't tell them things
The more the chain tried to tap in to the mass- market expertise had n't changed."
of its parent company, the less it looked an d felt like itself.
Such moves may have allowed Grom ek to claim , "Three years A T I GHT R OPE WALK

ago, our average cust omer was ss, today he 's 40,"but few could Des pite all of Brooks' attempts to update itself, to reach new
custom ers with new merchandise, and des pite huge infusions of
guess at wha t pr ice. capital to realize these changes and promo te an updated image,
M&S was unabl e to create a sustainable increase in the company's
Veteran custo mers were already upset by Brooks' decision in profitability. One shoul d not concl ude, however, that beca use
early 1992 to close down its suit facto ry. Although Brooks insisted the numbers did not im pro\'e, Brooks Bro thers didn 't need to
that it specified mater ials and inspected all final samp les before change. From at least the mid-Eighties, social trends and mar ket
mass production , many sensed an erosio n of quality. With Brooks forces - largely evid enced by the casualization of th e American
making fewer of its own products, long standing relationships
with suppliers either diminished or evaporated. Because many

[34 THE SE R VANT O F M AN Y M ,\ ~ l' EIt S

workplace - dcmanded that Brooks do somec;hina- "The busin ess as Brooks insid ers refer to it, was tailored clothing. M&S's
was built on suits and ties ," said an executive. "When peo ple sto p mechanistic mindset operated on a different determinism -
wearing suits and t ies, what do you do ?" "reduce production cost, increase margins" - a stance which
cannot be more opposite. What wor ked [or M&S largely d idn 't
Brooks tried to perform an extrao l·d.inarily difficult tightrope apply to Brooks, and no one would admit it. "We never articu-
walk: Create a retail environment which could so mehow lated our value proposition,'" claims o ne Broo ks executive, "and
embrace both a new sports,;vear-oriented audience and its tradi- meanwhile we lost OLLr core."
tional suit-and-tic customer. When M&S first acquired Brooks,
th e British magazi ne Business qUipped, "The consensus is that Further, in bending to the will of its somew hat inflexible parent,
Brooks shou ld extend its base, without alienating its loyal cus- Brooks Brothers was forced to pay far too much attention to
tomers. As a retail conjuring trick it is equiva lent to replacing the itself- to execur.ino - such that it became d.istracted from
table linen while leaving the china and si lver undisturbed." By what had been the primary so urce of its success for generations:
the late Nineties, it was difficult to evenfind the china and siJver. its customers. The men who had run the comp<l;ny for decades
In trying to appea l to two such divergcnt audiences, Brooks were, by and large, the same men who bought there. Many of
succeeded at neither. During the period, th e company's tai lo red th e Brookscs wCl"e Ya lies; John C. Wood ,"vas a Dartmouth mani
clothing business plummeted from roughly So percent to 20 Russe ll Tucker, the man who succeeded Wood, hailed fro m
percent of sales. Meanwhile, the new spor tswear customer Princeton, as did vice presidcnt Ashbel Wa ll, the last of the
proved as likely to buy his chinos somew here else. Brooks line, who retired in 1975. Even lesser luminaries like
Aoor manage r Frank Drummond had been an EngHsh majo r at
T hat being said , Marks & Spencer made mistakes that co ul d have Brown. They belonged to the same clubs, read the same books,
been avoidcd if only it had better understood the company it lived the same lives as their customers. They understood. They
bought. In its 175 or so years, Brooks Brothers had deve loped had made a lot of mon ey for Brooks over the years, but in this
a set of understandings, practices and business relatio nships frenzy of change, no o ne was listening to them.
unique unto itself. It wasn't vanity that placed a member of the
Brooks family at the helm for over a centurYi it was because they If someone had bee n listening, they would have heard the fol-
understood what co uld be asked of the com pany, and what sim - lOWing: The Brooks customer held a deep appreciation for
ply was not in its nature. Arabian staJl ions, quarterhorses and Brooks' coherence . That coherence formed part of the pact
thoroughbreds are al l extraordinary an imals, but the steps one Brooks had held with its customCt's for generations. "There was
takes to coax the best performance fro m each breed are \'er y a secret communication bet\'veen salesman and cllstomer, like
different.Too often and for too lo ng, M&S seemed convinced Brookspeak," stated a ro rmer salesman . "A code of trust .You
that a horse was just a horse. knew what the right thing was to put on the floor. Correctness
was a given. If it was in th e store, it was appropr iate. In the
Th e key factor which Marks & Spencer didn't understand was Nineties, when the customer saw suede jeans hanging alongSide
that Brooks Brothers \vas not simply a high-priced clothier, but $800 suits, Brooks Brothers began to look unsure of what it
a maker and seller of clothing which offered great I'olue for
its money, and that the centerpiece of this "value proposition," $wanted to be. It broke that trust."

T H E S lCl1.VANT OF MANY MASTERS 135



2001

PLAYING IN STYLE

THE LINCOLN CENTER
JAZZ ORCHESTRA,

FEATURING ARTISTIC
DIRECTOR WYNTON MARSALIS ,

OUTFITIED BY
BROOKS BROTHERS

•

•

,

•

HERITAGE RESTORED:

THE MILLENNIUM BLBeyond

BROOKS BROTHERS

COM PETITIO N IS EVERYWHERE GO I NG DIGITAL TAILORING I S AS

PR ECISE A CRA FT AS ANYTHING CAN THI NK OF - I F A SUIT DOESN'T FIT A

LIT TLE, IT DOESN'T HT AT ALL R ETAIL BRAND AL LIA NCE ASK I NG A LOT

OF QUESTIONS WHEN "THAT'S THE WAY WE'VE ALWAYS DONE IT " I SN'T

GOOD ENO UGH WE SHOULD BE BROOKS BROTHERS THE CENTRA LITY

OF TECHNOLOGY AND ORGAN IZATI ON, AS WELL AS THE OVERARCHING

IMPORT ANCE OF BRANDING BRINGING BACK QUALITY TN EVERYTHING

WE HAVE GREAT MUS I C IANS HERE - I CAN'T PLAY ANY OF THE IN STRUMENTS,

BUT AS THE CONDUCTO R I CAN MAKE SURE WE'RE ALL PLAYING THE SAME

M U SIC WE ' LL ST ART BY PUTTING INTEGRITY BACK I NTO THE PRODU CT

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE CLOTHING

HERITAGE RESTORED 139

he new millennium found Marks & Spencer continuing to struggle
with how to reposition Brooks Brothers within the retail clothing
world. For a dozen years, the British parent had tried new approaches
to almost every elem ent of the organization. In m erchandising, sportswear
overshadowed suits and ties . Older stores were remodeled to look less clubby,
and new ones emulated their n eighbors in the mall. Hipper advertising and
flashi er public relations attempted to attract a "new" younger customer. While
some initiatives met with isolated success, the lack of a comprehensive long-term
strategy to support these efforts resulted in a failure to portray a coherent picture
of what Brooks was and where it was going. Traditional customers becam e
incr easingly confused and disappointed, and new ones remained uninspired. In
the m eantime, M&S had spent an additional billion dollars trying to make the
business work. For M&S , the bottom line was the bottom line , and it didn't look
very promlSlng.

To add to their troubles, M&S was becoming incr easingly hamstrung by internal
problems . Their Canadian ventures had also proven unprofitable (and would
eventually also be jettisoned), Marks & Spencer wasn't doing well in Europe, and
even their UK business was faltering. Further, turbulence in the London board-
room- and an eventual palace coup - had created something of a bunker m en-
tality. As one executive later described it, "Marks & Spencer was like the Roman
Empire: The Gauls were at the gate and they didn't know what to do about it."

,
,140 : H ERITAGE IU :ST O R. EO

'4-'H ER ITAGE RESTORED

TA IL ORI NG GO ES DI GITAL Putting out the fires i.n their own backya rd left M&S with litt le
Brooks Brothers inooratire Dieltal time to attend to its Am eri can holdings. With Brooks beco ming
Tailori oo tcchnolOflJl, introduced In 200 I , more a distract io n than a profit center, M&S decided it was tim e
rcpresenud a sieoif/cant brcuklhrollsll in to cut and run . In March 200 1 , the ve nerab le haberdashery once
madc-(o-mcusurc clothing. In 12 seconds, again went on the block.
,he dieiwl scanner takes 200,000 meas-
Before continuing this saga, Marks & Spencer deserves its due.
urements,from which can be created a suil O n th eir "\'atch, the extremely profitable outl et sto res were
which c.facl~' niflects rile m;'arer. Diailal laun ched , and wom en 's wear in parti cul ar received long-ove r-
Tailori na ~combines the orr and science due attention .While their approach to spo rtswear was rife with
if/li e new retail." tacti cal miscues, M&S at least adcno,vledged that Brooks needed
to do something fo r the custom er no longer in need of a suit
[4 2 H ERI TAGE RESTORE!) and tie. But perhaps their.greatest contribu tion to th e Brooks
o rganizat io n was an increased respect fo r techn o logy. Und er
M&S tutelage. Broo ks used techno logy to deve lop new products
and hjghly creative ways to deli ver them.

DIGITAL TAIL OR ING

One Signifi cant examp le was DigitalTailoring - a rad ically
innovative approach to cllsto m tail oring. Based o n "white Ught"
teclmology, Dig itaJTail oring scans th e human body in a mere 12
seconds, capturing 200,000 "data points," including everything
from the cil-cumference of wrists, necks and biceps to the length
between th e shoulders and seat. From this three-dim ensional
map, a custom suit that traditionally takes six to eight weeks ca n
now be co mpleted w ithin 10 business days for only slightly more
than an off-the-rack version. Further, o nce the data enters the
computer, it stays there , so that a custom er, presuming he invests
more tim e 011 the treadmjJl than th e buffet lin e, can order a new
suit over the phone, even year s later.

Early skeptiCS insisted that nothing could substitute for the
hands-on, tape-measure-up-the -insid e- Ieg app roach to custom
tai lo ring practicc{1since man shed his bea rskins. Guido

Cozzolino, who created thousands of suits dur ing his years at as M&S announced thdr intentions to sel1 , the economy went
Brooks Bro th ers, once said, "Tailoring is as precise a crart as into freefal!. Soon thereafter, whatever remained of conswner
anything I can think of. If a suit doesn't fit a little, it doesn't fit confidence evaporated in the tragedy of September I I. With
at all." Brooks spent four years developing DigitalTailoring to the risk factor skyrocketing, who had the courage to take on a
ensure this standard would be maintained. During a year· long business badly in need of redirection and focus, not to mention
testing phase, Brooks brought in its own tailors to help techni· a large infusion of capital?
clans adjust the sofhvare (already calibrated to Brooks 'suit
designs) to ensure that, if anything, the quality of the garment On the day after Thanksgiving 2001, business pages on both sides
would exceed that or a traditional custom · mad e suit.Three 50- of the Atlantic bro ke the news that Broo ks Brothers was to be
man groups were measured by hand as well as digitally, and the purchased by Retail Brand AlI.iance, something of a come-from-
tailor's notes compared to the "notes" produced by the scanner. behind player in the stakes to own the venerable company.
Adjustments ,vere then made to the sofrvvare until the technology Considerable head scratching took place among the retaiJ
could duplicate the tailor's notes exactly. cognoscenti: RBA 's only experience in clothing was its owner-
ship of Casual Corner, a determinedly midd lebrow women's
In mid-November 2001, Brooks'exdusive DigitalTailoring wear chain, and thus Brooks Brother s seemed an unl ikely fit.
process was finally introduced to the publiC. At first, thi s process Those within Brooks Brothers skipped the head scratching and
might seem rather cold and inhuman, and hence very unlike went straight to skeptici sm and dread: Relieved of the yolk
Brooks Brothers, but in many ways it duplicates the process the of Marks & Spencer, wo uld the much abused Brooks now be
company has always used. It still begins with a conversation with Casual Cornered?
a trusted sal esman , who notes personal tastes and enters these
factors into the computer. "I sti ll have to listen to what my cus- "Retail Brand Alliance" sounds indeed too much like a mega-
tomer wants," relates one salesman. "(fhe tells me he likes an easy business, too much like another"Allied Stores Cor poration" -
coat , then I have to make adjustments." Thus the technol ogy cold, uncaring and determined to treat Brooks like an invest-
doesn 't substitute for traditional relationships , but rather sup- ment. But the company that emerged from the back oftbe pack
ports them. As several Brooks people noted, Digital Tai.lo ring would prove to be the opposite: warm -blooded, hands-on, and
"combines the art and science of the new retai\." willing to nur ture a shaky business that had lost its footing.
No one knew any of thi s yet because no one knew Claudio Del
THE R I SK FACTOR Vecchio, the man hehind RBA.

Despite such successes, M&S continued to court potential buyers, Descriptions of Del Vecchio written at th e time of the purchase
of which there were many. At least at first . Marks & Spencer 's leapt too quickly to the fact that he's the son of Leonardo Del
history with Brooks had heen plagued hy bad luck, beginning Vecchio, the founder of Luxottica , the world 's largest premium
with the purchase of a traditional suit-and -tie company seem- eyewear maker, suggesting that Claudio was a mere extension
ingly minutes before Casual Fri days became the rage. And while of his father's empire. While it is true that Claudio came to the
that might seem enough, bad luck stalked them to the end. Just United States in 1982 to manage Luxotti ca's North American
business, that fact fails to capture what Claudio himself brought
to the table.

HERITAG E RESTORED 143

I { E'TA!.b B RANPA LLIANCE CLAUDIO DEl VECCHIO

AOI'IU:~"E. VlrTI\[I"" RQ'I-<t RS ""01.1 el\. " .... (: 'fI'H:~ .• RO " if"/ sec m)'sc!fas a conduceor an orchestra.
cII have orcal mu~kiuns hefe. I can '/

play an)' ~ Ih c instrument.!, but as (h"

conduceor I call make sure Ire're all ployinO

lhe same music:'

144 HERITAGE ItESTO llEI>

The sto ry is usua ll y told something like this: In the ea rly Sixties, GrOWing up with Luxottica ,vas the first phase in Claudio Del
Claudio DelVecchi o's fath er, Leonard o, creates a sI11 ali o ptical Vecchi o's business edu cation. T he second came after th e acqwsi-
business, eventually call ed Lu xottica, and grows this mo m· and· tion of U.S. Shoe. The original plan called for keeping LensCrafters
pop o perat ion into an empire. Claudio comes to America to run and selling both U.S. Shoe and Casual Co rn er, and th e shoe
Luxottica's considerabl e U.S. operation. Luxottica eventually business sold with relative ease. But in 1995, with Casual Corner
in disarray and unsellable , the younger DelVecchio could ei ther
buys u.s. Shoe Co mpany in ord er to get LensCrafters and, sell at a Significant loss o r ri sk everything in an attempt to turn
the business arow1d. Willing to roll the di ce, he eventually bought
thereby, a direct U.S. retail outlet. After some buying and selling out his father and withd rew from his positio n at Luxottica, which
and spinning ofT, LensCrafters stays with the famil y holding allowed him to concentrate mo re fuJly on reviving Casual Corner.
compauy and Claudio hirnselfbu ys Casual Corner, the other
Sign ifi can t component of U.S. Shoe.

All or thi s is true, but such broad brushstro kes leave some par· O ne problem rema ined: Del Vecchio knew no thing about the
ticularly signifi cant angles unexplored. First, Luxottica's o riginal wome n's wear business. A ta ll , ge nial man, somewhat shy and
ti ny factory at th e foot of the Italian Dolomites mj ght mo re unassuming, he also defi es every son-of-an-Italian-magnate
accurate ly be described as a mom-and -pop-and -son o perati on. stereotype. He approached hi s new chall enge w ith an oddly
Claud io literally grew up with the business, as a yo un g boy productive com bination of confide nce and humili ty. "When
asse mbling boxes fo r o ne lira each. (The wo rk was so gr ind ingly I took over Casual Corne r, I didn 't know anything about th e
repetiti ve he could, and did, sometim es sit in his bedroom at clothing business. I asked a lo t of <J uestions. Why? Why?Why?
night, stapling the boxes in the dark.) W hil e in school, every And I didn ' t ta ke ' that's the way we've always done it' as a good
summer brought a new job for him at the factory. enough answer."

The fact that Luxottica's success emerged ve ry gradually The more he lear ned about Casual Cor ner, th e more his experi -
through the Sixties an d Seventies gave Claudio an opportunity ence watchi ng Luxottica's maturation seemed to apply. "At
to lea rn a g reat deal about creating a healthy business. What Casual Corn er, I Simplified eve rything. I created a structure and
set Leonard o apart from his many northern Italian co mpetito rs a system ." By the end of the Nineties, the co mpany was return -
was hi s original and rigorou s application of technolog), to what ing to health. "What they did in bu ying the wo men 's apparel
had been a largely arti sanal trade . In additio n to uti li zing tech- business from U.S. Shoe was rea lly against all comm on sense,"
nology, Leonardo lear ned that growing the business without claimed o ne reta il analyst. "But th ey 've shown a strong co mmit·
threatening quality and producti\rity re<Juircd strict application me nt to reviving th e brand ... and a willingness to spend money.
of o rganizatio nal fundamentals. Finally, Luxottica ex perienced They took the long odds on thi s one and are 'villing to be patient
its g reatest success after creating its own trademark , all OWing the to make it wor k."
company to eventually internationalize. The centrality of tech-
nology and organi zation , as well as the overarching importance
of branding, were soundly imbedded in his son's consciousness
by the tim e he a1Ti ved in America.

H ERITAGE REST OHE D 14)

"WE SHOULD BE BRO OKS BROT H ERS" Other va lu able pi eces o f Brooks' her itage em erged fro m unex-
pected sources. The previous regime, in its (-j'antic efTort to change
Del Vecchi o's attraction to Broo ks Brothe rs began in hi s ),oll th: the face of the com pany, had ordered much to be di scarded:
Even before arrivi ng in the Un ited States, he had been a steady generatio ns-old furnishings, display cases, decorative items and
custom er. He also saw a lot of Luxottica in Brooks' heritage. assorted memorabilia wh ich appare ntly had no place in M&S's
Like Henry Sands Brooks, Claudi o's father had literally bu il t his vision of the ruture Brooks Brothers. In hi s first few mo nths as
company with hi s own hands, and both companies had long preSident, Broo ks employees began appea ri ng at Del Vecchio's
door with odd remnan ts of Brooks histo ry. IfI tho ught yo u might
benefited from direct ramily ownership an d g rew to distin ction want to see this," they'd say. "I was told to throw it away, but
as both makers and merchants. But he also knew that the com - I just couldn ' t ."
pany from which he had purchased suits and ties as a young man
wasn 't the co mpany he acquired . His rirst ste p in rev italizing the Brooks Brothers owes a g reat deal to Madiso n Aven ue's Director
company emul ated his approach to ea rli er aC'Iuisit ions: He did a o f Operatio ns Mike Kelly,.who is responsible for perhaps th e
lot of listening. IIA t Casual Corner, we were willing to re- look at most remarkable - and heroic - of th ese m om ents. In a mid ·
everything," DelVecchio stated in his sti ll highly accented English. Nineti es effort to "modernize" the Aagship, the company had
"That's the way I approac hed Broo ks Brothers." been ordered to remove and literaIly th rowaway the statuary
lighting an d e.lega nt chand eliers whi ch had graced the first Aoor
He Listened to custo mers and turned to longtime Broo ks at Madison Avenue for decades. Mike, ove r 20 yea rs with Broo ks
empl oyees. Fearless in asking even the Simplest of questions, he Brothers, couldn 't bear it. Instead , he discreetly hung the chan ·
asked one veteran , "What should the company be?" He got the deHers fr om the base ment ceiling and placed th e statuary at
answer that stu ck:"We should be Brooks Brothers." Given how similar rem ove. Thanks to Mr. Kelly and his fe llow loyalists, much
far the co mpany had sn'ayed from that core identity, DelVeccJlio o f Brooks' heritage is nO\v back in its rightfu l place.
knew that such a reversal of direction would require new strate-
gies and a lo t of patience. "I had to ask everyone working at A NEW T EAM CRE ATE S NEW STRATEGIES
Brooks Brothers to be patient. They didn 't know LIS. I said to
everyone, 'Trust me . I can't prove I can tur n thi s around, l' m DelVecchio spent his first months restructuri ng the organization
nothing but my word.'As it turns out, I' m doing the opposite and assembling a team which shared hi s vi sio n .Without knOWing
of what they expected." it, DelVecchio was building a team al o ng the old Brooks model
tllat harkened back to at least John C. Wood if not Francis Lloyd :
From all that listening emerged the details of a painfully obvio us a mixture of o ld Brooks hands and new blood which all shared
reality: "'We're no longer living up to our name." To full y under- one vital trait - a passion about th e brand . "I see myself as the
stand what "Brooks Brothers" meant , Brooks' ncw leadership pa id conductor of' an o rchestra," explained DelVecchio. "We have
a visit to the company's archives. This was no quaint mu seum great musicians here . I can 't play any of the instruments, but as
outing: The archi ves revealed a ri ch, large ly forgotten world of the conductor I can make sure we're all playing the same music."
colors, fabri cs , and designs to inspire a new future. "Going to
the archives was a goosebump -heavy day," Del Vecchio mused .
"Before seeing the archives, I liked Brooks Brothers. After seei ng
what was in there, I Joved it."

146 H ERITAGE R U T ORED

"BROOKSII IS A N A M E THAT DESCRIBES ....." ...
A WHOLE MAN N ER OF DRESSING
. . . . . . . . . ~d ... . ~
"Brooks" is not only a familiar nickname for this store
. .. it has come to describe Brooks Brothers whole m:m~ _ u .a
ner of dressing.
"A P HIL OSO PH Y OF DRESS"
It stands for the roll of a lapel or soft-front construc- rI Cdp cnrough Brooks Brothers'rlrcnh'(!S
tion in our Jackets ... for the curve and "set" of our
Shirt CoHars ... fo r certain foulards :md striped Rep rc\'eafed a rUn nino,)' ifc!othins and
silks in our Neckties. "for distinguished blocking in
our English Hats and hand -Ianingin our English Shoes phiJo50ph)', Ad5 and old pholosraplls511ch
... for the distinctive cut and quality of everything a5chese were rrrong "oicesfrom Brookj'
we sell . pa5!, Tht! heritose ".hich emerscd beck-

We are Maker.; as well as Merchants. We lue im- oned a return co che core principles iflhe
porters of exclusive British lines as well as originator.s
and buyers of fme domestic products. We establish- compon)' - afoundation upon which
and we maintain-our own standards of taste. Brooks B ro(herscould.ftrm~' stand.

And the Brooks Label continues to be your :usurance
that you are dressed correctly and distinctivel y.

Ollr OWlI Mou RMdy-Modt Suits, Jrom Sl J5
Ollr "346" Sili/S, Jr(llll $100

IsrAtl.l5HlD I.. '

M ~ m5U1" AVI.NUI. coa. 10Il.TY.roU II.TH ITltE a ' I"IW YOU
aosn:tN • I.AN rRANClIoCO' 1.0$ MiGl 1.U

H E R[TA G E R ESTO R ED [47

346 MAD I SON AVENUE

II rerurn to herJtaoc: Sliits, shins
and ties return to Ctntcr StllOc.

A revitalized Brooks Brothers centered on classic tailored TH E R ETURN OF GOLDE N FL EECE
clothing no longer required a design team, which was disbanded
almost immediately. Some of those uneasy with returning to One of Del Vecchio's first such meetings was with Martin
such a "suit and tie" image left; those who replaced them und er· Greenfield, the master suit maker. Greenfield, like most of Brooks'
stood the importance of heritage. As one new arrival enthused, suppliers under the previous regim e, had been pressured to find
"Being on the first Aoor at Madison Avenue is like a basketball ways to make suits which cost less, even if that meant a com pro·
player standing on the parquet at Boston Garden." mise in quali ty_ Rather than "How can you make it for less?"
Del Vecchio sang a very different tunc. "Claudi o wanted the
Brooks' new senior leadership visited every suppH er in an ear ly Golden Fleece to be the best value on the market," Greenfield
initiative to clarify their rol e in th e massive upgrading of quality remarked. "He told me to find what new components were out
whkh was about to commence. Brooks expected not only a higher there. He wanted to rethink everything." Given Greenfi eld's
quality product, but also a return to the suppli ers ' traditional penchant for saying what's on his mind, DelVecchio had co me
role as partners in the creative and design process. "They have to the right man. "I told Claudio to bring back quality in every-
the responsibility to grow their business with us through innova·
tion," explained one executive. "We want plenty of input from "mthing. a suit maker, but I also wear Brooks Brothers in every-
suppliers, in both fabric and raw material supply. Intelligent
sourcing can lift us above the pack." To expedite these higher thing: underwear, handkerchiefs, shoes, everything." As a result
expectations and new relationships, Brooks wisely cut the num· of this meeting, Greenfield went to his suppliers, who in turn
ber of suppliers in half, concentrating production responsibilities went to their archi\-es to find, among other upgrades, an Italian
among fewer businesses. horsehair canvas far superior to what had previously been used.
(Canvas provides the inner skin of the suit:The more resilient
and suppl e the canvas, the greater the three·dim ensionality.

148 H ERITAGE RESTORED

High-quaH ty canvaSallows the suit to move naturaJiy with the QUALITY IS THE MESSAG E
body.) That first conversati on ended like many such meetings
over the generations: with a handshake and these words from The mesl0ac richis 1939 adnmise-
Del Vecchio, "I' m your partner."
mear remains just as pen inem wday:
The result of that handshake is a startling new array of high -
CJuality Golden Fleece sui ts produced in th e United States and "The Brooks standards ricorrectness
Italy of newly developed super 120 Loro Piana yarn. (The higher
the number, the finer the ya rn. ) In a sim ilar vein , the co mpany hare been pro,'ed in ever),yearJo r more
has also just introduced a domestically produ ced Hopsack
Go lden Fleece Blazer made of Loro Pi ana Super 130S. Finger ing /han a cemllry to be dependabll' ...
the real ename l buttons on the new Golden Fleece blazer -
five years ago they were fake - Brooks' head merchant recently as dependable as rhe qllO/iCy ofBrooks
remarked, "It's a return to the old Brooks Brothers."
motaiols ond Brooh workmanship."
PUTTI NG I NTEGR ITY
BACK I NTO THE PR OD U CT The business of importing, making and sell-
ing things to wear is one of n ever-ending
DelVecchio 's missio n to return quality and va lue to Brooks change. Over the generations since 1818 ..•
Brothers clothing wasn't limjted to its highest-e nd lines. At thei.r when H enry Sands Brooks first opened his
first meeting with their new owner, Brooks' merchants (those shop on Cathuine Street...customs and man-
in charge of each ap parel line o r item) were asked to display ners have constantly altered accepted stand-
every garment currently offered. Given Brooks' recent hi story, ards of materials and taste. Mere survival
his next question was startling, but increasingly typical : "How throughout 121 years in such a business would
can you make it better?"As one merchant remarked later, "That he interesting. But to maintain leadership is,
meeting made it clear that from now on our job was about put- we think, even more significant. The Brooks
ting integrity back into the product ." standards of correctness have been proved
in every year for more than a century to be
Behind this refreshing and ambitious vision loomed the daunting dependable...a. dependable a. the quality of
aspect of time. Brooks' reputation depended on what was in Brooks materials and Brooks wOJ.·kmanship.
the sto res, and clearly, what was in the stores didn 't measure up_
But the cycle time re'luired to replace these garments with Naw YORI: • BOSTON
those reflecting Brooks' higher standards woul d be considerable MADISON AVENUE CORNER 'ORTY·'OURTH aTJl&I:T
- und er normal conditions, as much as 18 months to two
years. It was already the Spring of 2002, and Brooks Brothers' NUlIlER ONE WALL STII££T . NEW YOU
NIlW8URY COR. BERUl.BY STREeT. 8051"0 N

HERITAGE R ESTORED 149

leadership kn ew they didn 't have th at luxury. W ith a thousand Over the previous decade, Brooks' range of olTeri ngs had flattened
decisions to make - new suppli ers, new designs, new technol- and homogenized :The highest and lowest t iers had been erfec-
ogy - eve rybody shifted into high gear. tive l), eli minated, and among ·what remained, fewer choices were
avail able. Under a new senior team, Brooks' strategy wou ld return
In less than a year, Brooks' merchants prod uced what DelVecch io to the coherc nt, three- tiered merchand ising model under which
calJed "a miracle" - entirely new upgraded garment lines at Brooks had operated for generatio ns: an entry level (preViously
every level, in the stores by April 2003. Last years' two-ply, Brooksgate, before that Uni versity Shop , now BrooksEasc);
Mex.ican -mad e cashm ere sweater was replaced by a three- ply an abundant mi d-range selection (now ca ll ed "18 18")j and at the
Italian woo l version. Brooks' new mid -range" 1818" suits are now top end, the return of Golden Fleece, the Rolls Roycc of Brooks'
made in the United States and co nstructed of Super 1105 in clothing linc.
Italian woo l.Th e " 18 18" sportcoats now co me from Italy in a
luso'ous silk /wool/ linen blend. Refl ecting extraordinari ly cre- By spring 2003, Brooks' merchants have also harkened to her-
ative sourcing an d innovation, the new Colden Fleece shir ts arc itage by creating an entire.: wardrob e at each tier. Looking for a
of 1405 and 200S two-ply ya rn , made in Switzerland , \-voven in blazer or a pair of chin os, the unfortunate Broo ks customer of
Italy, and built in Amer ica. And the Brooks customer can o nce the Nineties had but one deCidedly middl e-of-the- road o ption.
again experi ence the drape and feel of a seven-fold silk t ie - A trul y lu xurious blazer wasn't avai lable. If ),o u wa nted so me
a yard of sil k creates a lot of elegance. kick-a ro und chinos fo r pre p school, we ll - so rry. Given the
o ption to take it o r leave it, too many left.Today, to rema in with
tfBrooks is tryi ng to return to its old fo r m, why didn 't they also those two examples, one finds blazer s in all three sub-brands:
return to their traditional Scottish and English mills? Was Italy Golden Fleece, 1818, and BrooksEase. Ditto with chinos.
the source of so many new prod ucts because of Oel Vecchio's
connecti ons? Not so. "Clothing manufacturing has gone globaJ ," This return to coherence alJ owed Brooks' merchants to focus o n
explained o ne leader. "We simply looked for the best in every resto ring variety - and hence customer choice - at each
element of production .That's why we might find yarn mad e in leve l. For exa mpl es, let 's loo k at another cornerstone of the
Switzerl an d from cotto n grown in th e Caribbean and the final Brooks Brothers heri tage: its shirts. Before RBA arri ved, Brooks
product bu ilt in the U.S." oITe l·cel but 14 sty les. By the spring of 20 03, a Brooks custo mcr
could find an astound.ing 57 choices in style, color and sizc. No
COHERENCE AND VA R I ETY other company in America could boast this num ber of options.
To find new and appealing colors, the shir t group returned to
UReturning to the old Brooks Brothers" wilJ co ntinue to take a the archh'es, a visit which also prompted new combin ations of
great deal of efTort and considerable undOing :"Way back when , cuITs, coll ars and fabr ics. Like all other garments, shirting also
[Brooks BrothersJ stood for traditional su.its, starched shirts," \ven t through a quality check, and eve ry d oth in every shirt was
stated a retail ana lyst just before the acqu isition. ulSince thenJ upgraded. The new pima cotton shirts are made from co mpact
they've tried to get more colorfu l and a bit more contemporary spun yarn, which holds color better and offers a silkier hand .
and now I don 't know \.vhat they are." Many shared this sentiment. T he materi al used in Brooks' basic broadclodl shir ts rose from
Earl y on , tbe new Brooks team took ste ps to ensure such co nfu -
sion would never burden the customer - or the brand - again .

I }O HERITAGE RE.!)TORED

INSPIRED BY HERITAGE
Under new ownership. Brooks Brothers'
merchonts used the Brooks tlrchh'es t o
eather inspirationfor nell' coJor combina-
lions ond e\'en hieher Slandords 1fobrJa
and mOleriols. I~rie/y and qua/it)' U"ere
beine reswred.

H ER ITAGE RESTORf.D IS '

THE COUNTRY CLUB CO LLECTION 50S to 80S two- ply yarn , and in Golden Fl eece those numbers r
reach 200S . Interestingly, in those shirts which had an equivalent
This new line C!f1!fcsl),leclothin8, intro- a year ago, the prices haven 't increased . \

Juced In Ilpril cf2003. met standards if Representing an enormous manufacturing and financial com-
mitment, Broo ks has expanded variety and sizes in every type
quality, confort and closs. These9orments, ofgarment . Suits, blazers, sportcoats and tro use rs all come in
tested th rou9h a seri es ifu'ashinos, are more colors and styles. Yet thanks to a coherent strategy, every
Buaronued nOllo pill or chanee' shape. ite m rcA ects the Brooks Brothers character. Brooks' chi ef
merchandi ser commented recently, "We don 't buy for our cus-
[5"2 HERI TAG E RE STORED tom ers; we select for our customers. We have to say every clay,
cWo uld th e Broo ks Brothers customer wear that?' We could
sell a lo t ol'things but we shouldn 't." In statem ents like that, one
hears the uncanny echo of Henry Sands Brooks himselr.

THE COUNTRY CLUB COLLECT I ON

Whil e devoting ex traordinary hours to upgrades and redes igns
of its suits, dress shirts and ties, Brooks' merchants found tim e
to create an entire line of casual clothing as wel l.The Country
Clu b Coll ection represents, in fact , Brooks Brothers' first
attempt eve r to create a complete lifestyle ense mbl e. W hile
"lifestyle" might sound like marketing hype, it truly captures the
intent behind the co ll ection: Not strictly for goll' or tennis, this
tight.ly focused line of clothing is deSigned for easy movement
from the course to th e clubhouse and on to the dining room.

First appearing in April 2003, the Country Club Collecti on
represents a creative extension of the va lues and stand ards
applied to Brooks' new traditional appare l: Ever y item from
blazers and tro users to shorts and socks exhibits extremely high
quali ty and attention to detail. The Polo shirt, composed of
ultra-fine cotton 3- ply 80S yarn , is the h.ighest q uality on the
market. Foll owing Brooks' longstanding"for m follows fun ction"
logic, the golf shirt'i feature fuller should ers and lo nge r sleeves,
while the tenni s version comes \vith an above-the-elbow sleeve

ror ease at the ser ve~and - voll ey. All sports garments are created A PARTIALLY LINED JACKET
with a "performan ce treatment" to ensure that , even arter dozens
or washings , they won 't pill and change shape. Jackets wirn parliallininos were rhe norm

While per ro rmance is always paramount in a Brooks garm ent, 0/ Brooks un/illhe Fifiies and one qf
what pleases the eye are the creati ve designs. Brooks round that
virtually no one prod uced authenti c tenn is \vhites these days; Ihc reasons Inc compan), Slacked rht'ir
they round what they wanted - no surprise here - in old jackeu inside-oUI on rab/fsf oryears.
Brooks Brothers catal ogs.The resu lt is a high-perrormance Exposina the imcrior allan'S Ihe cuslomc,
garment wrapped in scrumptious classicism . 10 inspecllhe"rcarnwk Ihat Ooes infO
a quality Barmem.

Many of the sweaters and other items are mad e from authentic for each season, rather than two in th e United States.) Del
Sea Island Cotton. "Authenti c" is important here , as "Sea Island Vecchio saw apparel mad e fro m coolwoo l on his first visit to
Cotton" has been bandjed about in clothing circles rather loosely Brooks Brothers Japan . Before bringing a coolwool suit to the
oflate. Real Sea Island Cotton is alm ost impossible to co me by United States, it was tested for three year s in Japan , then
and very expensive, beca use th e nin e or so Caribbean islands another year state~sid e.
that grow it produce only o ne cmp a year and har vest it by hand.
To ensure ready supply, Brooks purchased virtually hair of this
year's cro p. Why go to the ri sk and tmublc? Because the rabri cs
woven from thi s cotto n - perh aps the fin est and certainly th e
rarest in the world - produce a remarkable garm ent.

This is Brooks Brothers' way to do casual.

CONT I N UI NG A HERITA GE OF I NNOVATI ON

Perhaps th e most signifi cant innovati on to co me from Broo ks Sporting a 3/8 lining for coolness as we ll as weight, this "ulti -
in 2003 is its new BrooksCool suit. like many of th e com pany's mate summ er suie) is al so wrinkle resistant and thus excellCJ1t
earlier innovations - wash -a nd -wear shirts and suits, the for warm-weather travel. And the blended yarn created by
recently introdu ced and extrao rdinary no n-iron dress shirt - Brooks and Daido has one other extraordinary property. Water
Broo ksCool was created to ser ve the customer who traveled poured over a BrooksCool garm ent beads off without leaving
a lot. Developi ng this Hghn."eight suit, howeve r, took Brooks a trace of moisture. A duck would qu ack with envy. You can find
down an un conventional path. Several yea rs ago, Brooks' thi s fabri c nowhere else but Broo ks.
Japanese partner, Daido MiLls, developed "coolwool" for Broo ks
Brothers' Japanese market. Uapanese weather is notoriously
variable. Brooks customers there have always required suits

IH R ITAGE RESTORED 'S3

w* ONE LIBERTY PLAZA: SEPTEMBER 11 , 2001

BR OOKS BROTHER S STORE E-MAIL RESPONSES
One Liberty Plaza. September 12, 200J.
CA MERON
I'm a New Jersey paramediC who was aSSigned to I Liberty Plaza at the WTC
site in New York. I am one of three people who share the responsibility in
having set up a temporary morgue in the remains of your store. I'm writing to
Sincerely apolOgize for any excessive damage we may have caused to your
merchandise or to the store itself. I hope our actions have in no way triggered
any negative effects upon your business. We were just doing the best we could
considering the circumstances.

Thank you.

Brooks Brothers' Liberty Plaza store was at around zero when terrOl- JIM
ists struck the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Although At the WTC collapse site Thursday night into Friday morning, winds whipped
up to 2smph, temps dropped to So degrees, lightning was striking and it
the massive alass windows were blown out by theJorce ofthe collaps- rained 2". Our bodies were drenched and shivering. Your store at I Liberty had
sweaters and socks. We needed warm clothes. We're not thieves, just tired,
ing twin towers, the name on the starifront remained eerily visibJe mentally and phYSically exhausted and desperate to find our missing brother
firefighters. Please accept these few words and understand why we took the
throuah the dust. Within hours, the store, miraculously still standing warm clothes.

and nearly intact, was traniformed into a [eliif'centerJor the thou- A firefighter at the WTC site .

ifsands rescue workers at the site . (The store was also britifly used RE GINA
ifas a mOTBue.) DurinB thefiTst days the rescue qJort, exhausted
r have to tell you - it is so hard - I have to tell you how extraordinary your
firemen were seen putting on Brooks sweaters, socks and other cloth-
people are in the store near the devastation of the towers, and how extraordi-
ina, and some concluded that New York's bravest were 100tin8 the nary you must be as a company to offer the store as a makeshift morgue -
to offer that kind of sacrifice - I praise you and honor you, and 1am over-
venerable store. Nothing could have beenfurtherfrom the truth. whelmed by your instant willingness to forget dollars and inventory and
your own needs as a business, and to help in such a total way. One report said
Within days, the company began receiving checks and money orders racks of clothing - the expensive clothing I know you make - were pushed
aside by employees to make room for the dead, for body parts, employees
if- some them addressed simply "Brooks Brothers, New York" - witnessing unimaginable horror by doing so.

to payfor the goods. Thank you. God bless.

For days cifter the attack, most concluded that the 54-story bUilding ROBERT
which housed Brooks would have to be demolished. Even cifter it was To Who It May Concern,
determined that the bUilding would sUIvive,jew presumed that Brooks I would just like to express my sympathies to your company for the loss of your
would go through the expense and qJ'ort to rebuild. The company's store across from the World Trade Center and hopes that everyone made it out
new owner decided otherwise. Exactly a year cifter t he attack, Brooks alright on 9/"/01. I am one of the Paramedics who responded to NewYork's
Brothers reopened its two-level, 16,000 squarefoot store, which cry for help on that fateful day. My wife and I worked all night long in the
Liberty Plaza building treating the brave Police officers and Firefighters who
had stood on that site since 1976. "We had to 80 back," said Claudio were injured while trying to help everyone. I want to thank your company if
it were not for you many of those Policemen, Firemen and Medics that were
Del Vecchio. "it was a matter cfprinciple." working very long hours would not have had a place to rest.

Thank you, God BlessAmerica.

154 HERITAGE RESTORED

MA lA PEGGY
We just wanted to let you know how sorry we are about what happened during
the WorldTrade Center bombing to the Brooks store down there. It is the I am not unlike many others who enjoyed holiday time in New York City.
store I usually shop at and I wanted you to know that I hope all the wonderful My favorite hotel because of lhe ratio of value to cost was the Marriott World
em ployees arc safe and sound with their families during this horrible time. Trade Center. I was there in August and, while out walking, passed the Brooks
We 100'c that store and will continue to shop uptown until you (hopefully) Brothers store there many times.
rebuild down there.
That store was Canadian built and I understand has withstood the blast for
the time being.

GILES I am somehow proud to know that you have turned over that store for whatever
purpose is best. In this tragedy, the face of humanity radiates through the ashes.
Dear Brooks Brothers - Iam a subscriber but more importantly weare
proud of you guys back there in NYC and a Brook'\: Brothe rs St ore used to Congratulations on your contribution.
assist with recovery efforts .

... Our thoughts and prayers arc with the NewYorkers at this time. When MARC
you have a chance let me know how I can obtain my favorite mug - a Brooks A story about your One Liberty Pia7.a branch
Brothers Coffee Mug I bought about 7 years ago - now broken. It was one
of my fa\'orites and ifyou can provide me with information on how I can pur- In the swnmer of '979 my first office job was a tem p at Merrill Lynch when
chase a replacement anywhere it would be "ppredated. I was 15 . J took my first paycheck to the C itibank branch in the WorldTrade
Center, and went into the branch of Brooks Brothers and bought blue button-
Thank you down oxford shirts with the proceeds.

HERITAGE RESTORED I S5

WOME N AND BOY S under different merchandising strategies. Aga in , with cohe rence

The new senior team has \vise}y chosen to focus on the com pany's and consistency keystones of Brooks' new thinking, t hi s won't
core lines first: suits, ties and shirts. New women's and boy's happen again.

apparel, as well as accessories and furnishings, are still und er " MADI SON AVENUE I S OUR MOD EL "
development. But what is encouraging is that decisions regarding

these item s will benefit from the same kind of strategic, customer- No matter where a devout Brooks customer lives, eve n if in a
centered thinking reflected in the products already on the shel ves .
As Brooks ' head merchant noted, "We want to make sure that town that hosts a Brooks Brothers store, a visit to New York
we're lOo -percent right in each item before we put it in the store." ,. mu st includ e a pi lg rimage to Mecca: 34 6 Madison Avenue.
Unfortlihately, the Aagship, which has now ser ved cOWltless

Being" lOo-percent right" takes time. One of Del Vecchio's generatio ns of custo m er s, suffered from neglect under t he
strengths as a conductor is that he's patie nt with his orchestra as previous ownership. It 's clubbin ess ..vasn't cool, and so much
they master new music . "Befo re, owners were always trying to attention was lavished up'on its glass-and-chrome Fifth Avenue
'grow' the wom e n's business," said Del Vecchio recently. "I don 't Sibling t hat so m e thought Madison had cl osed. No more.
manage by percentage. I just want wome n 's wear to be at [00 Madison Avenue is about to undergo a refurbishing : new e leva-
percent of its potential. We're going to put the right product out tors, a new roof, and, gradually, a Aoor-by-Aoor facelift. Like
there and let the customer tell us what per centage it should be." a gra nd old gentleman after a shave an d a haircut, Madison w ill
One might presume this logiCwill apply to all remaining areas. then look like its sprightly old self, only better.

OUTLETS When asked about the look of other Brooks stores, Del Vecchio's
ans\ver is unequivocal: "Madison Avenue is our model. The re's
Brooks Brothers' strategic initiatives for its retail di vision will nothing wro ng with Fifth Avenue. On its own , it's a bea uti ful
soon affect the fa ctory sto res as well. Outlets will continu e to be store. It brings us in contact \vit h a different custom er - often
seen as a viable means to access new and diffe re nt custome r s. a tourist - who doesn't com e into the Madison Avenue store.
"There's a Brooks Brother s customer eve rywhere; outl ets arc an Ultimately, the produ ct is more important than the tabl e it
opportunity to reach them ," claims one sen ior officer. "The same is sold on."
'will happen in the outlets as is happe ning in retail: better quality
and more variety. People at the outlets will soon be seeing a EXPANSION
higher quality and more appropriate styling than we had in
retail five years ago." The possibility of succeeding in thi s initia- Currently with 82 r eta il and 80 outlet stores in the United
tive has been greatly improved by the decision to place one lead States, further domestic expansio n must await the development
m er chandi ser in charge of both retail and outlet. Prior to this of a compre hensive strategy. Other than opening three new air-
restructuring, outlet and retai l had lost synergy, each operating port stores to accompany the six already operating, re novation
or relocation of some present stores w ill receive first priority.
When further stores are conside red, Brooks will like ly abandon

156 HERITAGE RESTORED

the smaller "prototyp e" m odel of the last 10 years to focus this disposition are delighted to see Brooks return to its heritage,
in stead on larger imprints that reflect Brooks' or iginal "destina~ and particularly elated to see the re-emergence of the Golden
tion store" identity. The west coast will rece ive first attention, Fleece co ll ection . So enamored are they with Brooks' tradition
beginning with a new flagship in Beverly Hills in th e fall of 2003, and style, there's even a movement afoot to bring back the
likely followed by larger locations in Seattle and San Francisco. "bespoke" (custom-made) sui t. Under the ne\v leader ship , cus-
Stores of more uniform size serve Brooks' new emphasis on tomer s \-vill have greater assurance that VI/hat's being sold in
coherence and consistency. It will take larger stores to accom- Ameri ca will be offered in Japan.
modate Brooks' ex pand ed variety, and the new leadershi p seems
umvilling to tolerate the custom er frustration created by small A GLOBAL BRA N D
stores which can 't carry Brooks' full range of merchandise.
Brooks Brother s' Asian partnership with Dickson Trading, begun
J A PAN in 1997, continu es to push the Brooks brand toward a w ider
intern ational audience. Five stores now thri ve in Hong Kong,
Now almost 25 years o ld, Brooks Brother s Japan continues to three smaUstores continu e to do we ll in Taiwan, and three others
flouri sh. Of equal importance, as is evidenced by the new have recently opened w1d er joint partner ship in mainland China .
Their exper ie nce in Japan h as taught the company to m ake par-
BrooksCool suits, "BB1" r emains a vital creative partn er. Their ticu larly adept cult ural adju stments. For exampl e, the Chinese
found the Brooks Brothers name difficult to pronoun ce, so th ey
57 retail stores, seven flagships and four outlets are supported changed the company name to something wh ich soun ds like
by an extraordinarily loya l and enthusiasti c custom er base. As Brooks Brothers but m eans "ancient co in." Some adjustments
always, Brooks' Japanese customer reveres the brand like no other. have bee n merely practi ca l: Because the m ain land Chinese stores
have no co mputers, all business info rmat ion is entered by hand.
It was perhaps thjs customer \'vho fow1 d the changes of'the In June 2002, Brooks opened its newest sou theast Asian outpost
Ni neties m ost disturbing. "They love the Ivy League look," in Si ngapore, a I ,4oo-square-foot boutique at Raffl es City.
remarked a Brooks executi ve . "When the co mpany introduced
spor tier sty les, our Japanese customer s didn 't like it." In a cou n - Perhaps the most intriguing news on thi s front is Brooks' antici-
try where "Casual Friday" doesn 't exist , the Japanese shopper pated opening or a flagship in Mil an. Th e last two decades have
continued to link Brooks v'li th classic tailored clothing, but it seen much discussion of the viabili ty o f a European presence,
wasn't just the traditional clothing they mi ssed, bu t all the trap - and steps were taken in that direction in the late Nineties, when
pings of a venerable American brand. When the company Brooks began a \'vholesale operation within selected department
stopp ed using the traditional sheep icon over seas (espeCially the stores in Milan. Ultimately, Del Vecchio decided that Brooks
sheep cufflinks), the Japanese custom er \-vas deeply dj sappointed. should open its own store in that northern Italian capital.
Scheduled for Fall 2003, this ve nture \"ill mark the first wholly
Others might love the apparel as mu ch as the Japanese, but no owned Brooks Brother s store outside the United States .
one more appreciates the brand. Everything about Brooks
Brothers Japan retains the look and fee l of Brooks in the Fifties,
fro m the stores to the products. Need less to say, custom er s of

HEItITAG}: RESTORED 157