Clothier makes preppy return

S.J. Cahn

Preppy is as preppy does, and as of Monday, preppy is doing

Newport-Mesa again.

After a 4 1/2 -year absence from the area, venerable clothing

company Brooks Brothers -- creator of the polo shirt and the pink

oxford for women, the company that brought seersucker (thank you very

much) and ready-to-wear suits to America -- returned to the area with

the opening of a store in South Coast Plaza.

“We really just want to reestablish ourselves as a traditional

American clothier with a luxury flair,” said Chris Holt, the store’s

manager.

Traditional, perhaps, but with a futuristic twist: Within the next

two months, the store will install a digital tailoring device that

does a full body scan for the ultimate fit.

It will be the sole one on the West Coast, Holt said. The other is

on Madison Avenue.

For those still happy pulling their clothes off shelves and

hangers, the store will sell the full assortment of Brooks Brothers’

clothing -- men’s, women’s, boys’ and made-to-wear. While there will

be a certain Southern California bent, given the warmer weather,

pieces from the company’s full fall line will be available.

“For the traveling customer,” Holt pointed out, though the

fall-theme display windows with falling foliage and footballs

suggested as much.

That traveling customer, or even one planning on staying close to

home, will find a wide assortment of items -- gloves, scarves, robes,

shoes, belts, shirts, suits, jackets, shorts, pants, ties,

handkerchiefs, suspenders, cuff links -- in a wide range of styles

and colors -- pinks, greens, yellows, blackwatch, argyle (which the

company popularized), the aforementioned seersucker and stripes (the

ties, in particular, as Brooks pioneered the diagonal-striped “Repp

tie”).

And if clothes don’t, in fact, make the man, the store also offers

the book, “How to be a Gentleman.”

It sells bow ties, too, a fact that seemed important to the crowd

of about 30 who gathered for the Monday morning opening (double that

if adding in the store’s 32 employees). Many, at one point or

another, made a joke about bow ties, or the near lack thereof on the

men wandering through the store’s almost 12,500 square feet.

Near lack, because on one counter stood a neat assortment, and

store employee Shawn McMahan was difficult to miss in his rakishly

debonair neckwear.

“I’ve been a Brooks Brothers customer since I was 4 years old,”

McMahan said. His first suit, a seersucker, was bought on Madison

Avenue.

McMahan, like his fellow employees, was less than buttoned-down in

his enthusiasm for the store’s first official day.

“It doesn’t even feel like work,” he said.

At some point it most likely will, if the high hopes of the

company’s district manager for retail in the area, Karen McKenna,

come through.

“It’s been a very successful, soft opening,” she said of the days

preceding the big grand-opening splash. “We have very high hopes.”

And with the store located on the second floor of the Carousal

Court -- where Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and other holiday

highlights appear -- she said she’s expecting great things from the

holidays.

As are South Coast Plaza officials.

“We’re very delighted to have Brooks Brothers join our incredible

collection of stores,” said Debra Gunn Downing, South Coast Plaza’s

marketing director.

The previous Brooks Brothers store, in Fashion Island, closed in

January 2000.