Brendon Babenzien on Bringing Back the Iconic J.Crew Catalog—and a Whole Lot More
Once upon a time, the catalog was king. You might remember this era fondly, wistfully, nostalgically; it was an expanse of several decades, a period before, "Click the link in my bio to shop this piece!" had ever been typed out on an iPhone and posted to Instagram. It wasn't always perfect. But when it was good, well, it was very good.
J.Crew's catalogs were right at the top of the heap, aspirational artifacts full of attractive people, beautiful vistas, and the kind of clothing that'd ensure you—yes, you!—would fit right in with them. You might recall seeing one arrive at your doorstep sometime between 1983 and 2017, when the last issue was printed. The brand's printed matter was so iconic, it's still the stuff of legend in menswear spaces and dedicated social media accounts, like @lostjcrew and @thejcrewarchives. And now, in conjunction with its Fall 2024 campaign, men's creative director Brendon Babenzien is bringing J.Crew's beloved catalog back.
"I had been longing for the catalog for a long time," Babenzien tells Esquire. "The catalog is this physical thing that really gives a little more gravity to the images and the clothes. And the timing is really good, essentially, because we do live in the digital age. It feels like now’s a really nice time to see something different."
Something different is a specialty of Babenzien's. If you possess even the faintest, slightest interest in or knowledge of fashion, you know him—perhaps not by his name, but surely by his work. The Long Island native is credited with helping Supreme become the juggernaut it is today, having joined the team back when it was a skate wear start-up back in '96 and going on to serve as its creative and design director for over a decade. He's also the brain behind Noah (or half of it, at least; Babenzien co-founded the brand with his wife, Estelle Bailey-Babenzien). And, since 2021, he's been the man at the helm of J.Crew's menswear. So, yeah—whether you're a skater or a fashion fanatic or a finance guy, you know Brendon Babenzien. He's as familiar as, oh, I don't know—a print catalog, with fingerprints all over the fashion industry.
"I’m standing on the shoulders of giants in my position [at J.Crew]," he says. "All that’s come before me has paved the way, so it’s about reframing the thing. Like, hey, let’s remember who we are and let’s do what we do."
Below, the creative director sits down with Esquire to talk about the return and revival of J.Crew's catalog (which is set to publish three times per year moving forward), the lessons he's learned in the industry, and the inevitable return of all great things, from preppy style to retro media.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Esquire: I’m really excited to be speaking with you about this J.Crew catalog, it’s absolutely stunning.
Brendon Babenzien: I’m glad you liked it. Do you—well, sorry, I was about to start asking you questions about it as if I’m interviewing you. Do you have a history with catalogs?
I didn’t really grow up in the catalog era of fashion. My parents flipped through them to get clothes for me for back to school when I was a kid, maybe, but I’m very much a product of the digital age of fashion, with Instagram ads and links to shop. So getting to flip through this catalog was nostalgic; it’s kind of this relic of the old era of fashion, but also, it’s very much a new thing. So I’m curious—why bring the catalog back, and why now?
I think there’s probably a lot of reasons, and I think you’ll get different answers from different people. From my perspective, I had been longing for the catalog for a long time. I really like tangible things—vinyl records, books, all those things. And I think there’s something about photography and collecting images in one place to tell a story. The catalog is this physical thing that really gives a little more gravity to the images and the clothes. And the timing is really good, essentially, because we do live in the digital age. It feels like now’s a really nice time to see something different, and to touch something and flip through it and actually live with it, because digital stuff is so fast. Having things in your personal space that you can refer back to in your own time and at your own pace is really nice.
Like you said, with vinyl records and all of that good stuff, these sort of retro things are making a big comeback, especially with younger generations. They just think it’s cool, and it is.
I think there’s a reality to living with things that is really relevant, beyond cool or uncool. You do have more of a connection to things that are in your actual, physical space. Music that’s heard digitally is great, there’s nothing wrong with it, I listen to digital music all day long. But vinyl, you spent more time with the records. You spend time with the catalog, you look at it longer. I think it has more to do with what people actually crave, even if they’re not conscious of it.
It’s interesting that you mentioned the catalog is a form of storytelling. What story is the catalog telling, in your opinion?
It's funny, I think the catalog tells the story of J.Crew, and all the catalogs always have, which you would think would get tedious and boring after a while. But for some reason it doesn't, because it's really human. Before I was working with the brand, just as a consumer or a fan, from the time I was a kid, what's always been really appealing to me is this lifestyle that seems really pleasant, really lovely, but also attainable, not ultra-luxurious. It can be achieved. That's really important. I think it's these really subtle, nuanced things, and it's not this big, huge, like, “look at me” or “look at my life” or whatever. It's really about the simplicity of things. And I think this catalog continues in that tradition. It's places that you might recognize, it's people you might recognize, doing things you might do yourself.
Are there any vintage J.Crew catalogs that you remember flipping through that have stuck with you throughout the years?
It’s funny, because I remember them all. I was there pretty much for all of them. Sometimes the memories are really present, and sometimes I'll go flipping through old catalogs, and see an image that I’d kind of forgotten about, but was always back there. And as soon as [I] see it, it's, like, instantaneous. I was thinking about the catalog covers specifically that I really love, and because I'm quite a bit older, there's one from really early on that's just oars. It's just blades from rowing, and they're green and white. And I may be getting this wrong, but I think it says “quality for the long haul,” something like that. And I really love that one because you're not seeing people. You're not even seeing clothes, but you’re getting a sense of what the brand was about, what was important to them.
Speaking of covers, this one sees Demi Moore as part of the brand for the first time. Can you tell me a little bit about that casting decision and her connection to J.Crew?
I guess it is a casting decision, but it felt more organic than that. I didn’t speak with Demi personally, but my understanding is that she has this really great collection of vintage J.Crew stuff and is actually quite a big fan of the brand historically. I think it was a really easy conversation to have, and seeing her with older things in her life and being able to speak to the long-term quality of J.Crew is a really cool thing, you know? It had to do with her genuine connection to the brand.
Everything with not only this J.Crew catalog, but every J.Crew catalog, feels so intentional, from the styling to the casting to the clothes to the setting. What’s your decision-making process like when it comes to putting together a project like this?
Well, the catalog is a symbol of probably a larger thought process at J.Crew, generally speaking. It's funny—I know it appears really intentional, and it seems really thought through, but it all flows very naturally. It's not complicated. It's actually quite simple, because everybody's pretty invested organically in the brand and the culture of the brand and the identity of the clothes that the intention is almost totally natural. It doesn't require a tremendous amount of work to get to these end results. Historically, for me, what's been really impressive about J.Crew is it always feels really natural and organic, because it actually is. And for someone like myself, that has always been really important.
It does all feel very authentic and organic.
I think when I came on, it wasn't the obvious choice to some people, because they didn't know my history. They just thought, “Oh, the guy from Supreme, that's kind of interesting or weird or whatever,” but the fact is that organic thing that they have, that natural thing, is the most important thing to me no matter what. Being authentic to yourself, presenting your true self is, to me, the most punk rock thing you can do. And J.Crew's always done that, so I've always been a fan. I've always loved that they just are what they are, and they're not really trying too hard.
Obviously, you’ve worked at some pretty behemoth menswear brands, and you’re not at arguably the most behemoth one. With this release of the catalog, it seems like we’re moving forward by looking back. Do you think we're heading back towards a place where things like catalogs and these physical media are going to be commonplace in fashion, especially for my generation, who didn’t grow up with things like this?
I think they'll never go away. I don't know if they'll ever be the dominant medium, but nothing that ever has held any value can stay down for very long, right? It just can't. If it's good, it's good. You know what I mean? Vinyl's good. The quality is good. The experience you have with it is good. It could never die completely. And you can say the same thing about magazine culture, and in this case, catalog culture. If it's done well, if it's good, it has a place in the world. I think it's just that simple. Nothing is ever permanent. The world will have ebbs and flows, and that's a constant. That's the only thing you can rely on. But wanting to do something and not letting popular culture tell you when or how to do it, I think that's the most important thing. It doesn't matter if it's the most popular thing or the most important medium. If it holds value for you, you do it.
J.Crew has always had such a history of iconic marketing. When you came to the brand, what did you want to continue and what did you want to make anew?
I mean, I’m standing on the shoulders of giants in my position. All that’s come before me has paved the way, so it’s about reframing the thing. Like, hey, let’s remember who we are and let’s do what we do. There wasn’t going to be grand, sweeping changes when it comes to marketing. It was more about getting in a room together and reminding ourselves of who we were, because for me, it’s always been about quality, value, and a kind of independence where you’re not getting too caught-up in fashion, you just have good style.
Interesting—can you elaborate on fashion versus style?
Personally, I’ve always been much more interested in people with great style than people who are really invested in fashion, because, to me, they’re two very different things. J.Crew’s always fallen more into the style conversation than the fashion conversation for me. Fashion is whatever’s happening right now, right? You can be very fashionable, you can just buy the latest and greatest things, and you can be fashionable. But style is your own thing. It lives outside of fashion. You can’t really talk about it; it really is elusive.
You just know it when you see it, right?
I think the reason it’s elusive is because it’s unique. It’s not really common anymore, you see it less and less. I really love to talk about personal style and encourage people to have independence, and with what we do at J.Crew, I think we make just the right product to give people that kind of flexibility to have their own personal style without it being too trendy or fashionable. We’re right on the edge; very close and current, but never trendy.
I feel like, with the J.Crew Guy of the ‘90s and 2000s and even 2010s, you see him in the catalogs and you know who he is. You know the kind of guy he is. So who is the J.Crew guy of the 2020s?
You know, I don't think it's that different than it's ever been. Again, this might sound a little bit boring or mundane, but the fact is I think that the guys who are J.Crew, they've always been the same. They push, but they don't push too hard. They care about how they look, but they don't care too much. It doesn't define them. I kind of joke in the office about a grandfather wearing really baggy chinos and the grandson really wearing really baggy chinos at the same time for different reasons. And they came to it in different ways, but that's reality. You've got a much older gentleman, he might have been a post World War Two guy, and then a new kid is wearing it because maybe he's a skateboard kid and baggy clothes make sense to him. These things are always constants, you know what I mean? I think we have a very similar customer from even the ‘80s until now. Even though time changes and looks do change, we've managed to stay relevant for that American guy.
With that being said, as a street style aficionado yourself, I’m sure you’ve noticed this younger, bolder audience rising that feels different to what J.Crew has been historically associated with. I mean, you go outside on Bowery and Canal now, and you see 10 different guys in Giant-Fit Chinos and Giant-Fit Oxfords.
I mean, that’s inevitable. Things come and go, and there’s no question that, sooner or later, if everything is super busy and loud, the next generation is going to come along and be like, no, I don’t want to be part of that, I want to do something different. It was inevitable that, eventually, younger people were going to slowly reject super bugged-out things and want to look a little bit cleaner compared to some jersey with 50 logos on it and rose-printed pants. But it’s still their own identity in their own way. A Giant-Fit Oxford or a Giant-Fit Chino together is very reminiscent of the time when I was in my 20s and the early ‘90s, when New York really defined the style. And oddly enough, New York skateboarders led the charge. I mean, they were dressing back then—well, we were, because I was part of it. We were kind of preppy. We were wearing preppy brands, just wearing them bigger than our parents might have wanted us to. But it was definitely prep turned on its head.
How did not only that era, but your youth and upbringing in Long Island influence the way you look at fashion?
It’s my entire universe. Everything I’ve done is connected to that time in my life. I mean, I started working in a surf skate shop when I was 13, so I was invested in skateboarding and surfing and snowboarding and music, and clothes played a big role in your style within those spaces. You can't separate anything I've done in my entire career from the time I was—I mean, I started skateboarding when I was five, and I probably started boogie boarding when I was seven and surfing by the time I was twelve. So it's always been there. The foundation of my style, because of where I grew up and how I grew up, was essentially preppy. I don't know if I've spoken about it in this format before, but you have this foundation of preppy style, and then you hit ten, eleven, twelve. You start getting interested in music on your own, and then that stuff starts to impact you culturally, and those things start to wrap around what you have as your core. For me and my friends, our core was preppy, but then we really got into punk rock and new wave and hip-hop.
And quite frankly, in 1981 through 1984 or 1985, that idea of those two worlds colliding was brand new. Two worlds colliding is commonplace with social media; everybody sees everything, so mashups are really down to happen. But in 1981, ‘82, ‘83, you didn't see anything unless you sought it out, right? So that idea of preppy colliding with all these other subcultures is what I believe built me as a person and as a creative individual. But I think it also was the foundation of pretty much everything that goes on today, whether it be what happens in fashion or music or even entertainment. I think the seeds were planted back then when worlds started colliding for the first time.
It’s interesting how you had this organic love of fashion and culture and music that you grew up with, and then once you make it into the professional world, you have to reframe it. Did your time at Supreme and your work at Noah change the way you viewed fashion at all, with having to look at it through a lens of commerce and retail?
Not really, unfortunately. That skillset is not my strongest. At Supreme, it wasn’t really my responsibility. James [Jebbia] is probably the most brilliant retailer of all time, so he handled that quite well. And at Noah, I have a different approach. I like the idea of having a small business and not being this massive thing, so it’s all relative. Like, what does “big” mean? I’m not interested in having the biggest company in the world, so those problems don’t really apply as much to me. And I’ve been very lucky coming into the J.Crew position after the world I was in—I was coming in as a person who was going to have to work on product and marketing and the interesting, fun stuff. I’m the lucky guy.
Over the years, what’s been the most valuable thing you learned at Supreme or Noah that’s guiding you at J.Crew now?
Trust your instincts. Trust yourself. That’s a conversation I have with young people all the time. There's going to be people constantly telling you what you can or can't do, what you should or shouldn't do, or there'll be a system in place that's been used for a really long time. And the assumption will be that that system cannot change or should not change. But if you have a feeling about something and you feel like something has to happen, you should trust that.
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