what's new, J.Crew?

A midtown appointment finished up early, and having misspent some of my youth in a town whose name in the local variety of the Algonquian language has been variously translated as "place where the mall rats gather" or "place where the stores look like  the other stores," I instinctively and craftily slithered across the street, eluding colleagues, and took a look at what might be new in the Rock Center J. Crew.

This is a store that is surrounded by enormous office buildings, in which thousands of women come to work, at all professional, administrative and clerical levels, all day, all year. There was not one thing I would wear to work at any job I've ever had, except maybe camp counselor. Are they missing a marketing opportunity or trying to distract us from dreary days? and if things look dreary at your job, shouldn't you be encouraged to take small or large steps to improve that situation?

Well, here are some pix and comments. You come in the front door and are greeted by a long table of short shorts and tees. The tees are tees. Some of the shorts are cute. Red and cream-colored shorts had little fish critters. The fish were sparkly.
 These shorts are not so tiny, and in real life are light pink with yellow embroidery. Sorry about the lighting.


 There seems to be a lot of embroidery around. The pencil skirt to the right was cute; a spaghetti-strap dress in the same fabric had a short puffy skirt and didn't appeal.

The black-and-white theme seemed prevalent, as well. Oops, the mannequin on the left is wearing a romper!
Close-up of romper:
This looked like a cute jacket, cotton, or cotton/linen blend, but I couldn't get the hook-and-eye closures to close or to remain closed. So although in theory I'd like it with black skirt or slacks for work, or for work & after, the falling-open bit would make me crazy. Not recommended.
Cute dress, flimsy material, short, low-cut, keeping the wrapped bit wrapped seems problematical. You either need a lot more chest or a lot less chest than I have. Oh, and definitely a lot less thigh.

8 comments:

  1. I can't deal with clothes that only look good pinned to a mannequin or behave with the help of fashion tape. And even if rompers are cute and comfy or the hottest trend, I'm not wearing one. Sparkly fish and embroidery sound cute/pretty!

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  2. I would never wear shorts at all, never mind ones with sparkly fish embroidered all along the bits of fabric that attempt to cover the thighs.
    Oh another romper!

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  3. Yay, a romper! LOL

    I like the floral pencil skirt, but what gives with the shorts? Maybe JC is telling me I am too old for its target market. Yes, most of those young ones I know can afford its prices.

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  4. Every time I see that blue wrap dress with the contrasting trim I think "bath robe". Must be some repressed childhood memory or something.

    I like the shorts with fish and the embroidered pencil skirt but not enough to buy either one.

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  5. I saw the new collection and there are a few cute pieces IMO. The striped jacket looked smashing on one of the SAs, really, really nice and polished. I liked the pencil skirt at first but the embroidery is a little bit too much chinese market IMO (especially for the price).
    I have to say, I liked the pinup romper!

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  6. Ema, I actually liked the striped jacket in the abstract, tried on 2 or 3, just couldn't make the cute little metal clasps work. sigh...

    and Gigi, my poor picture doesn't do the little sparkly critter fishies justice. They are actually quite merry, and there are only a few on each pair of shorts, which shows admirable restraint and taste. Cute. But a banquet-sized table set with piles of short shorts wasn't what I expected at this location. I forgot that unlike Anthro, JC doesn't much vary its stock or visual merchandising by location.

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  7. I checked out the new arrivals too and love all those shorts but would never wear them at that length. Several more inches and I'm sold.

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