Brooks
Brothers - (en)
Brooks Brothers is the oldest surviving men's clothier in the United
States. The privately owned company is owned by Retail Brand Alliance, a
spinoff of Luxottica, and is headquartered on Madison Avenue in New York
City.
On April 7, 1818, at the age of 45, Henry Sands Brooks opened H. &
D.H. Brooks & Co. on the Northeast corner of Catherine and Cherry
Streets in New York City, where the South Street Seaport now stands. He
proclaimed that his guiding principle was, "To make and deal only in
merchandise of the finest quality, to sell it at a fair profit and to deal
with people who seek and appreciate such merchandise." Interestingly,
the company's very first transaction was a loan to one of Brooks's friends.
In 1850, Brooks's grandsons Daniel, John, and Elisha inherited the family
business, and renamed the company "Brooks Brothers". In its
early history, Brooks Brothers was most widely known for introducing
America to the ready-to-wear suit. In the late 19th century, Brooks
Brothers tailored many distinctive uniforms for elite regiments of the New
York National Guard.
The last member of the Brooks family to head the company was Winthrop
Holly Brooks, who ran the company from 1935 until its sale in 1946, when
the company was acquired by Julius Garfinckel and Company. After the
acquisition, Brooks Brothers's director was John C. Wood, who was known
for having supposedly made Brooks Brothers an even more traditional men's
clothier. By 1969, the ten Brooks Brothers stores in operation were
located in New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Los
Angeles, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C.
Though today many people consider Brooks Brothers a very traditional
clothier, it is also known for having introduced many clothing novelties
to the market. In 1830, the store was the first to sell seersucker suits
in the U.S. In 1896, John E. Brooks, Henry Sands Brooks's grandson,
invented the button-down dress shirt after seeing the non-flapping collars
on English polo players. Between 1865 and 1998, Brooks Brothers did not
make an off-the-rack black suit, because Abraham Lincoln wore a bespoke
black Brooks frock coat when he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth (and
as a result, the traditional American rule is that black suits only are
proper for servants and the dead). President Theodore Roosevelt was fond
of Brooks Brothers clothes: he even ordered his dress uniform for the
Spanish-American War at Brooks.
Ralph Lauren, when his name was still Ralph Lifschitz, started out as a
salesman at Brooks's Madison Avenue store. He was granted the right to use
the Polo trademark from Brooks Brothers, which retained its rights to the
iconic "original polo button-down collar" shirt still produced
today.
Brooks Brothers was acquired by the British firm Marks and Spencer plc in
1988. In 2001, Marks & Spencer sold Brooks Brothers to Retail Brand
Alliance ("RBA"), a company privately owned by Italian
billionaire Claudio del Vecchio (son of Luxottica founder Leonardo del
Vecchio). Besides Brooks Brothers, RBA consists of three established
brands: Casual Corner Group (recently sold), (a women's speciality
retailer which includes Casual Corner, Petite Sophisticate, August Max and
Casual Corner Annex brands), Carolee (a designer of jewelry for department
stores and speciality stores), and Adrienne Vittadini (a designer of
women's clothing and accessories).
Currently, there are 170 Brooks Brothers stores in the United States and
70 scattered throughout Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Italy. In 1998,
Brooks Brothers launched its official website. Today, Brooks Brothers
relies much on materials and tailoring from developing countries, whereas
before the 1990s virtually all of its clothing had been made in the United
States, Western Europe, and Canada.
The symbol of the Golden Fleece is Brooks Brothers's trademark. It
consists of a sheep suspended in a ribbon, which was the symbol of Flemish
wool merchants in the 15th century and later traditionally had been a
symbol of British wool merchants. In ancient Greek mythology, a magical
ram's skin, or Golden Fleece, was sought by Jason and the Argonauts.
