Gentry style

You have to give Abercrombie and Fitch credit for sheer audacity. Launching a London flagship store of what is essentially an American mall shop between Bond Street and Saville Row takes steely nerve. With neighbours representing the history of bespoke British tailoring on one side (Kilgour, Henry Poole, Gieves and Hawkes), and international designer power-brands on the other (Chanel, Ralph Lauren, Hermes, Gucci and friends), A&F had a lot to prove.

For those of you lucky enough not to know about A&F, it is one of the great American retail success stories of the 1990s and early 2000s. (That is, if you call peddling distressed, faux-vintage t-shirts and cargo shorts to the middle-classes a success.) In its previous incarnation, Abercrombie, founded in 1892, was a brand that sold high-quality outdoor gear to the well-to-do. I can just remember the last gasp of its Georgetown store, where you could still find a decent loden wool crewneck, before it finally died out completely in the 1980s. The name was then purchased and the brand reinvented as the travesty of tradition it is today. A&F now sells banal clothing for mall rats – a kind of upstart Gap with delusions of grandeur. But its aggressive marketing of carefree masculinity has approached genius.

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It wasn’t long ago that you wouldn’t touch clothing from Brooks Brothers, let alone buy it. Unless, of course, you happened to find wonderfully soft, worn old Oxford cloth button-downs and baggy Bermuda shorts at your local thrift store. But since a re-launch in 2002, the brand is back on form and has gone some way to redeeming its fine old name.

True, in this world of mail order and online shopping, we can never fully reclaim the past and relive the good old days when all clothing in the Brooks Brothers catalogue was illustrated rather than photographed. Those were fun times. But at least some of their signature clothing is still to be found, without much restyling. You can still find a classic blue blazer with gold buttons for under $500 (just), the seersucker remains more desirable than the de rigueur designer stuff that’s so prominent this season, and every so often they bring back a classic tattersall poplin shirt that you should snap up and wear until you die. Oh, and their boxer shorts are still the roomiest around (but American butts need lots of room).

Now they’ve really gotten sassy by getting in designer Thom Browne to do a special collection – Black Fleece –

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Few launches have been as hotly anticipated as Tom Ford’s new flagship men’s emporium, which opened on Madison Avenue last month. The most important story in global fashion in the 1990s, Ford’s tenure at Gucci is already the stuff of fashion legend. He recast a brand whose best years were well behind it (the 1970s) with a combination of selling sex, celebrity and great designs (mostly). Furthermore, he did so seemingly with an extraordinary amount of charm. Real charm is a rare trait in fashion, so Ford’s combination of discretion, elegance, and old-world masculinity (unusual for a Texan) made the world fall in love with him and his brand.

All that’s behind him now, and while reports suggesting that the post-Gucci Ford was going to take on Hollywood and manufacture dreams in another medium, that hasn’t yet panned out. Instead, he’s worked on bijoux projects – designing for Ermenegildo Zegna, collaborating with Estee Lauder, launching a fragrance – waiting to make his next move.

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