It's too soon and too late to say goodbye to J. Crew. [Because the retailer, which was $1.7 billion in debt (open in new tab) at the time it filed for bankruptcy on Monday, had been struggling to maintain its financial and cultural capital for quite some time; when was the last time J. Crew could reasonably be said to have caught the zeitgeist and set trends? For example . . eight years ago" (FYI: Eight years ago, Timothée Chalamet was a sophomore at LaGuardia High School, rapping under the stage name "Timmy Tim." (Since then, shoppers have left the mall and turned to the Internet (opens in new tab). (Opens in new tab). Frequent discounting (opens in new tab) caused customers to wait for price cuts. Sales fell.

But the company was not alone, for J. Crew had taken some promising steps to secure its future before the pandemic drove it into the inevitable. Jan Singer, formerly of Spanx, Nike, and Victoria's Secret, had just been named CEO (opens in new tab), and Madewell, a sister brand of Cool Kids, was scheduled to make an initial public offering this spring (suspended until when (opens in new tab (suspended)).

Besides, it would be presumptuous to think that Chapter 11 is the end of the story; J. Crew has announced that it is "fully operational during this reorganization process" and hopes to reopen stores as soon as the CDC allows. In the world of fashion, as in life, what you thought was gone forever can come back again, and who would have thought you would spend the spring of 2020 texting your ex (opens in new tab) or ordering a face mask from the (once bankrupt) American Apparel (opens in new tab)? (opens in new tab). Ours is a strange and unpredictable time.

J. Crew started out as an unglamorous staple for practical preppies who ordered their khakis and crewnecks through mail order catalogs. In a timeline that roughly coincided with the Obama presidency (mid-2000s to mid-2010s), J. J. Crew dominated mainstream shopping malls and became a trusted brand offering bright daywear, tortoiseshell accessories, and relatively safe bridesmaid dresses In 2008, during the Great Recession, the brand was rebranded to "The Crew". In 2008, during the Great Recession, then-executive director Jenna Lyons offered $1,900 (open in new tab) for a sweater from the "J. Crew Collection."

At the height of J. Crew's cultural dominance, Lyons exhibited at New York Fashion Week, bringing her glittery, slouchy aesthetic to the Met Gala. As she rose to prominence, her signature items, thick-rimmed glasses and boyfriend blazers, became staples of a certain new generation of preppy girls. First Lady Michelle Obama famously wore J. Crew green gloves to her husband's first inauguration, stood on stage at the DNC in Barbie pink pumps (opens in new tab), and wore a signature J. Crew cardigan to a White House event (opens in new tab) He famously spent eight years wearing the J. Crew signature cardigan at White House events (opens in new tab).

How to explain J. Crew's allure: J. Crew warmly suggested that the parts of your wardrobe that were always bleak didn't have to be. Who said bridal gowns had to be so stuffy? Why can't you brighten up your grayscale cubicles with a pop of tangerine or a metallic skirt that shines like a disco ball under the office fluorescent lights? Why can't my boyfriend, who is afraid of color and doesn't "get" fashion, wear this shirt (opens in new tab)? It wasn't wild, but the sequined gray sweater (...) was the place to go for a woman who considered sartorial risk.

Even more fascinating was J. Crew's hilarious unraveling of the boundaries between environment and identity. Blurring the line between the playful anarchic joys of childhood and the respectable, responsible attire of adulthood, it represented the self that had to be "serious" at work and the fun self unleashed at happy hour, glamorous when out and cozy when laying low.

But after years of rising sales, 2014 brought a loss of $607.8 million (opens in new tab). Shortly thereafter, three high-profile departures followed: Lyons, Mickey Drexler (who became CEO in 2003 and was catapulted into the limelight as the mastermind behind "bringing J. Crew back to life (opens in new tab)"), and Frank, head of menswear design (opens in new tab). Muitjens left in 2017. J. Crew once shone as the realization of a coherent and instantly recognizable vision, classic but with a wink. At the very time that social-first, direct-to-consumer shopping made it easier than ever for consumers to satisfy their whimsical preferences elsewhere, J. Crew appeared to be going through an identity crisis.

For those with money to spare (purchasing J. Crew represented the "low" half of the high-low look), the designer's name beckoned. For those hungry for the freshest, newest trends, the ever-shifting shelves at fast-fashion outlets offered the perfect solution. These days, they are more likely to be lured by a single Instagram ad for a minimalist startup with a sans-serif logo promising sustainability and transparency, the perfect T-shirt, or the best slip dress, which would make all future purchases redundant.

Perhaps most disconcerting for the former fashion juggernaut: the original, enduring image that J. Crew has projected is just... I'm beginning to feel uncomfortable: the fantasy J. Crew is selling relies on shared recollections of an improbable time and place, like Kennedy, but the notion of longing for a "simpler" time mixes poison with nostalgia, and the call to return to the past feels like a threat, President It doesn't ring a bell in the United States, where it is co-opted by the

J. Crew is just one of the shopping mall titans whose status is declining as the 2010s turn into the 2020s. Victoria's Secret (open in new tab) sales have plummeted in recent years, and it has lost its "sexy" monopoly to the comprehensive and diverse offerings of Fenty and a group of startups marketed as progressive lingerie brands. Abercrombie & Fitch, once the unofficial uniform of the hottest kids in high school, has realized its declining influence and erased its once ubiquitous logo from its clothes (opens in new tab).

J. Crew, the first major retail casualty of the pandemic, will soon have plenty of company: just days after J. Crew announced bankruptcy, Neiman Marcus also announced bankruptcy (opens in new tab). Reuters (opens in new tab) reports that Lord & Taylor's bankruptcy is imminent and that they "don't expect to get out of the process. "According to NPR, J.C. Penney, Sears, and Brooks Brothers are "among the companies considering bankruptcy, sale, or trying to downsize their vast store networks . are among the companies that are considering bankruptcy or sale, or trying to downsize their vast store networks" (opens in new tab). So at least give J. Crew this: they're a trendsetter again.

Still, J. Crew could make a comeback. It wouldn't be the first time: perhaps no one would have predicted that Popular Merchandise, a mail-order catalog from 1947, would reemerge in the 1980s as J. Crew. Who knows what the brand will do next?