J. Crew opens online vintage watch shop

JwRosenthal · Apr 15, 2022

I really miss A&F in their old form- I was in college when they began the shift over to their current branding, but remember going there with my father because they carried XLT dress shirts and Long ties, and marveling over all the beautiful leather goods and rich looking lifestyle products.
The closest to the old A&F would probably be Orvis.

Donn Chambers · Apr 15, 2022

kaapstadflaneur
J.Crew is late to the vintage watch game. Other men's clothing retailers in the same market bracket jumped into the vintage watch game years ago. For example, J. Press (from whom J. Crew stole their image and ripped off their name) and Todd Snyder have been selling vintage watches (at vastly inflated prices) at their physical retail stores for years. I don't foresee this being a major game-changer for J. Crew (whose clothes I happen to like, especially the Wallace & Barnes sub-line). In any event, this is a sign of the times as watches go more mainstream.

i recall Barney’s NY had a nice vintage watch section in their San Francisco store back around 2005 — just before they declared bankruptcy. Had a lot of nice watches — saw my first Flightmaster in person there. Of course, it was way overpriced.

so yeah, J. Crew is late to the game, but it is interesting that it’s a “fast fashion” rand doing it now, not higher end. That does point to marketing indicating 20-30 year olds wanting vintage watches.

stonestone · Apr 15, 2022

I think you could sort of describe this as J. Crew adding a vendor to help accessorize the clothing that is their primary source of income. It seems previously it was mostly smaller to mid-size men's fashion boutiques that carried vintage watches -- in addition to the other's mentioned, there's also Mark Cho's the Armoury. Maybe a signal of "peak vintage" within the mainstream fashion culture that a larger retailer like J.Crew is playing with the same concept.

J. Crew opens online vintage watch shop

JwRosenthal

Donn Chambers

stonestone

Similar threads

Mixed experiences with The Vintage Watch Shop (Ebay)

Help and opinion on online vintage Omega