Take another look at Madewell.
The casual, laid-back, denim-driven brand is entering the new year with a “culled-down, elevated and refined” collection aimed at keeping pace with America’s fast-changing shopping patterns. Under the spotlight for spring: Madewell’s “new classics” — the leather blazer, poplin shirt, the trench coat, a relaxed suit, a sling bag, the slip dress — as well as trending denim leg shapes, oversized separates, and styles and outfits versatile to wear day-into-night and for different occasions.
“This is a really important moment for us,” said Libby Wadle, president and chief executive officer of the J. Crew Group, which includes the Madewell, J. Crew and Crewcuts brands.
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“Listen, we’ve all been through a lot and a lot of new behaviors have emerged over the past three years. Given everything that we’ve gone through, and how thoughtful people are now about dressing, we really took a good hard look at what we were doing and the size of our assortment and its relevance.”
Wadle, in a joint interview Monday with Joyce Lee, Madewell’s head of design, emphasized that what’s happening at the brand is a reset, not an overhaul, and that the company continues to be rooted in denim, which accounts for about one third of the volume. Madewell is tracking towards generating $1 billion in sales eventually. In 2018, it generated roughly $700 million in volume.
Madewell’s consistent design approach and appeal, and efforts to build “a community” of loyal shoppers centered on denim, has in large part contributed to its growth since its launch in 2006. There’s also growth through retail stores. Madewell continues to open a modest number of stores each year — up to 10 are planned in 2023 — and currently operates 151. A store on Manhattan’s Upper East Side will open in April and is designed to reflect Madewell’s new direction. Wadle also said the company is investing in stores “with all sorts of refreshes” to ensure that the in-store shopping experience connects with how the collection is changing.
“It’s an evolution of the brand, not a revolution by any means. It’s really based on what our customer wants and enjoys — more of a practical approach to dressing. It’s a thoughtful, deliberate approach,” Wadle said, and a matter of responding to Americans returning to the office and socializing more as the threat of COVID-19 diminishes, while spending less on clothes and more on traveling, dining out and other experiences. For spring, the team has reduced the Madewell style count by about 15 to 20 percent, to focus on what sells best and the image and key styles and outfits Madewell wants to call out.
It’s also a matter of offering “effortless” styles that can work with pieces already in the closet. “Denim is still a crucial part of our brand,” said Wadle, citing low-rise baggy straight legs, the slouchy boyjean, the super-wide leg, and the kickout crop being among Madewell’s top jean silhouettes.
“You are going to see much more of a presence of tailored pieces, though denim continues to be the most important category for us. It’s really complemented by all of these new classics.”
“When we talk about effortless and refined at the same time, it’s that balance of something that feels easy and understated while adding a little bit of polish with that tailoring,” Lee explained. “The relaxed tailoring pieces are just something we’ve always had but right now we’re just wanting to make sure we’re focusing in on it and showing how we’re styling it. The versatility in some of these pieces is really key. So we’ll talk about how you can dress something up or dress it down. Denim is such an easy piece to mix with a tailored piece that just adds some uncomplicated polish to the look. That’s what we are talking about a lot.”
Madewell is also highlighting suits — dressed up when including the trouser or thrown over a slip dress, or paired back with a jean, to demonstrate versatility. “There are so many ways to wear some of these pieces. So it’s just really making sure we’re coming through with that — through our emails, through our marketing messages, through the styling on the website and obviously what you’re seeing in the stores,” said Lee. “We’re showing our customer how to wear literally just a jean and a T-shirt outfit, to how you can dress up with a slip dress by putting on a pair of heels, so you can feel a little bit more polished and refined. But you can also dress that slip dress down with a poplin shirt on top. This is all a huge part of how our design team approaches creating these pieces and it’s the lens for me — this effortless, refined style.”
Lee said Madewell is “leaning into a more modern way of dressing… like taking something as classic as a poplin shirt, but really making sure the fit feels cool and still feels easy and accessible, aspirational and accessible at the same time. That’s something that’s really important to us — fashion that feels timeless, yet of the moment. So it’s like straddling a balance. And we want to be able to give her these refreshed pieces that feel classic, foundational and super essential, but with that twist. What’s the fabric? What’s the color? And it’s all about our styling point of view, our way of pulling outfits together that feel a bit effortless and there’s always some unexpected part of that look that feels inherent in our brand.”
Madewell’s reset, Lee added, involves both refreshing the fashion perennials, dubbed the “new classics,” while simultaneously developing products that haven’t been in the mix before. The reset also involves, as Lee said, “shifting the edit so the collection is a little bit more focused and speaking to items that we really believe in.”
Since its launch in 2006, Madewell has maintained a downtown, youth appeal without being trendy. As the years pass, it must evolve as lifestyles change, and customers get older, while also drawing in new shoppers.
Asked if the brand is now trying to appeal to a wider or older audience, Wadle said, “For us, it’s not about age. It’s just about style, and people who appreciate style. And again, the timelessness of your choices. Madewell really transcends age. It’s about offering an aspirational pair of jeans for someone in their 40s or someone in their 20s. We’re always trying to grow. Certainly we have a great opportunity to continue to grow our brand and the awareness of it. And denim would be the primary way we’re doing this, because it is really the category where we get our most loyal customer who comes back to us. We have an opportunity to get the younger Millennial into our brand via denim, and we’re really starting to see traction there. That’s our biggest opportunity really, to expand our share in denim.”
Another opportunity is in menswear. “We launched our men’s business sort of softly over the past couple of years. There’s great traction in that business. We’ve added men’s into quite a few of our stores,” Wadle said.
“So between the denim and the menswear and this product refinement and our new classics, those really are our opportunities. We’re not looking to expand into categories that we’re not in. It’s really focusing and getting more people into [shopping] our brand. Absolutely, we’re trying to get the Madewell name and brand out there and on more people. For sure, that will always be a goal for us.”
In 2019, the owners of J. Crew Group revealed plans to take the-then high-flying Madewell public but eventually aborted that idea due to the impact of COVID-19 and a determination that the sister J. Crew brand, being saddled with debt, wouldn’t survive on its own. The company filed Chapter 11 in April 2020 and four months later, through a debt-for-equity swap, emerged from the bankruptcy with almost all of its $1.7 billion of debt wiped out and with Anchorage Capital Group LLC as majority owner.
The group has been streamlined, profitability is said to have been restored, some creative ranks replenished, and targeted investments are being made in technology, omni-capabilities, refreshing stores, and to some extent, in catalogues again. But the J. Crew brand hasn’t quite recaptured the buzz, the cool factor and level of customer loyalty and repeat shopping it once had, while Madewell, while not as red-hot as in its earlier days, has been performing better.
Asked if a Madewell IPO is being reconsidered, Wadle replied: “We’re not really focused on that. We’re in a great position. We’re excited about what we’re seeing in the business…from this evolution of Madewell. And so that’s not really top of mind. It’s not something that we need to do today. We have a terrific leadership team at Madewell. And we also enjoy the great platform that comes from being part of the group. We feel really good and powerful because of it. So for right now, no, not today, but you know that could always change.
“We are really excited about Madewell’s direction for this year, it’s very healthy growth that we’re planning,” Wadle said. “Madewell is a brand that always pushes forward. There’s a different environment out there now, a new state of mind. We wanted to get in front of that. And, you know, we always are relevant and on top of the trends, but not trendy.”