J. McLaughlin vs. Juicy Couture

The following quote from yesterday’s NY Times article about class in Nantuckett piqued my interest:

On the sidewalks, class speaks through clothes. "The old money wears Lily Pulitzer, J. McLaughlin and C K Bradley," said one saleswoman, who wanted her name withheld to avoid offending customers. "They wear gold hoops, and if they buy new jewelry it is pearls or they upgrade their diamond rings. The new money wears Juicy Couture, Calypso and big necklaces.

I never heard of any of these brands, and this got me slightly worried. What if I couldn’t tell them apart? What if I was giving off crass nouveau riche signals by wearing Juicy Couture inspired clothes?

I turns out that I had nothing to worry about.

Juicy Couture Seaside Logo Tee, $88

That, my friends, is a low class garment being sold at a jacked up price. It looks like something you might buy for $5 at Seaside Heights, NJ.

It violates two very important class rules:

(1) It has words on it. Big words (“big” referring to the size of the lettering and not the difficulty of the vocabulary).

(2) It’s a t-shirt.

Perhaps you’re thinking that I chose the worst example of Juicy Couture for the purpose of making a point? Well you might be right, but trust me, the rest of the men’s clothing line is almost as bad.

That someone is paying $88 for this t-shirt demonstrates that a person can have a lot of money without having the least bit of class. The person who buys this t-shirt is only buying it because it costs a lot of money.

J. McLaughlin Northport Button Down, $110

Here we see a classic preppy shirt in today’s trendy colors of pink and green.

Pink is an especially interesting color in men’s clothing. You can’t really wear pink when you are going to be interacting with regular people. The lower classes don’t like men who wear pink. They think it looks gay.

It’s too bad there are no J. McLaughlin stores in the Washington, DC area. I guess this demonstrates that DC is a lower class city than New York. The next time I’m in New York I know where I’m going shopping.

Comments

[Michael H.]

Hi Half Sigma
If I see a fellow walking around Arlington in a pink and green striped shirt, I will know it's you.

I think it is fascinating that a clothes manufacturer can sell clothes a way over cost and people will buy it because everyone knows it costs a lot. It would seem too easy to do. Only the Ralph Laurens and the Izods can get away with this strategy, but how did they do it?

My feeling is that only insecure people really care about what others think of your sense of class. But you are single, so you have reason to be insecure. Personally, I exhibit no sense of class whatsoever. My clothes are mostly stained with tumeric. Many of my shirts were bought from India years ago for about $2 apiece and look it. I don't care. Why should I care?

[reader]

This post is most surprising since it contradicts the princple previously stated.

Upper (ruling) class define what is classy clothing and the middle class herd follows. If 50% of the Fortune 500 CEOs started wearing $88 pink shirt (instead of a more conservative white shirt), I'm willing to bet in a year or two, it will become the new standard.

Clothing (fashion) is just another way we signal to others our place in society.

[Reader]

J.McLaughlin is a timeless classic that has been around since the 1970's. They have many stores! The clothes that they sell are GREAT quality and well worth the price. I love their clothes. I don't think they have a retail store in DC. I do know that they are in Richmond,VA and have several stores in the DC area that carry their line (like Sherman Pickey on Wisconsin).

[Kitmeout]

Juicy Couture is possibly the biggest fashion phenomenon to hit the high street and cyberspace in the past decade. Before the advent of Juicy Couture nobody would have guessed that you could slap the word JUICY across the rear of a pair of terry toweling pants and make a mint. But hey, the Juicy girls had a vision and the determination to bring Juicy Couture to life and nobody can deny their amazing success.

So what’s the history? Juicy Couture is the story of two girls named Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Taylor from Pacoima, California who wanted to create the best you can find collection in girlie clothes. Juicy Couture was founded in 1994 as an upscale T-shirt line. It later expanded into denim and sportswear, and in 1999 the designers introduced their signature low-riding drawstring JUICY pants and form-fitting zip-up hoodies in an ever-widening array of velour and terry cloth. Although the JUICY pants are a run away success with their target audience it must be noted the associated innuendo has caused a significant amount of indignation amongst certain sectors of our community.

Juicy Couture, like any business, is now trying to diversify. The brand now includes both a men’s and a child’s clothing line. This is where we start to see the problem in defining a brand so clearly in its formative years. Juicy Couture was marketed as your archetypal ladies’ brand so any attempt now to cross over into menswear is utterly futile. No guy, not even your die-hard metrosexual, would be seen in Juicy Couture clothing not to mention a pair of Juicy Pants with the word JUICY blazoned across the butt. The lesson here for Juicy Couture and up-and-coming brands is it’s prudent to inject a degree of ambiguity into your initial marketing so not to box yourself into a predefined and inescapable corner — Ambiguity is a useful marketing mantra. That said and to be fair to the girls at Juicy Couture, if their initial concept had not had such an unambiguous definition then it’s likely Juicy Couture would not be the success it is today — a successful ladies’ brand!

Returning to the issue of the innuendo associated with having JUICY plastered across a woman’s derriere and the indignation that incites in certain sectors of our community, it’s perhaps fair to say this is greatly compounded when introduced into a child’s clothing line. Juicy Couture plays heavily on innuendo and therefore a large percentage of parents will be loathe to purchase Juicy Couture clothing for their kids and some might suggest that Juicy Couture even create a completely new name for their child’s clothing line which is utterly devoid of any innuendo.

So the girls at Juicy Couture should feel proud of their successful ladies wear brand but in all fairness they should forget menswear and rethink their whole approach to their child’s clothing line and marketing strategy. Maybe we can help them out and think of a name for their child’s clothing line? What about Lippy Couture!

[Lisa]

Juicy Couture is ghetto looking. Pink and green are not so preppy... ever know of ANY prep school whose colors are pink and green? Any real, self-respecting "prepster" wouldn't be caught dead in such obnoxiou new money garb.

[Benny Z]

I beg to differ with Lisa. While Juicy Couture certainly has a ghetto vibe, pink and green are not inherently un-preppy. The second picture of the shirt is not from Juicy Couture, it is from J. McLaughlin, a bastion of preppiness in the mold of J. Crew. Colors are not, in and of themselves, preppy or un-preppy (black and brown excluded); preppiness is a function of the brand and the way in which the colors are used.

Let me put it this way: J. Crew and J. McLaughlin are preppy; Juicy Couture is not. It is safe for any person unsure of the preppiness of an outfit to assume that any outfit from J. Crew or J. McLaughlin is quite preppy indeed. It is also safe for the same person to assume that any questionable outfit from Juicy Couture is not just un-preppy, but is most likely quite baroque.

But one more point must be made. The old-money/new-money dichotomy is not one that is defined merely by clothing. J. McLaughlin does not make a person old money, and Juicy Couture, hideous though it may be, does not make a person crass and nouveau riche. Anybody who thinks that they can seem "old money" simply by wearing preppy clothing is deceiving themselves. There is much more to it than that, and real "old money" can tell if you are dressing the part and faking it.