The New Alex Mill Is Here for the “Old J.Crew” Fans—and Everyone Else, Too
If you loved J.Crew at its most #menswear, back in the Liquor Store era and before the days of throw pillows and $15 T-shirts, allow us to introduce you to New York label Alex Mill. Or, rather, re-introduce: it Alex Mill launched in 2012, the brainchild of Alex Drexler, the son of J.Crew’s former CEO Mickey Drexler. Now, though, it's back with a new spin: creative director and J.Crew alum Somsack Sikhounmuong’s new vision for the label debuted on Tuesday. Drexler père is here, too, as an investor and strategic advisor for the brand. All of which means there is now a whole lot of “old J.Crew” energy at the new Alex Mill—and it shows.
It shows in the camo-print shorts and expertly rumpled button-down shirts in Sikhounmuong’s debut collection. It shows the lookbook styling, where shirt cuffs are messily flipped over jacket sleeves, and dress shoes and chinos are worn without socks. It shows in the new brand positioning, which promotes “easy to wear essentials” and #uniformsforindividuals. It shows in the fact that the line now includes womenswear, which mixes chore coats and mini skirts. There is some unmissable, messy-polished J.Crew energy happening here—the kind that’ll bring you back to style pre-athleisure, pre-streetwear, pre-Bieber-as-fashion-god days of menswear.
Which isn’t to say the new Alex Mill doesn’t have anything new to offer. For one, all of the line’s fabrics are sourced from Italy, Portugal, and Japan, while clothing is produced mostly in Asia, keeping prices under $200. The strategy is designed to appeal to conscious, quality-driven consumers who want to have their cake and eat it too. And while J.Crew trended towards office-wear with its emphasis on shirting and suits in preppy colors and patterns, Alex Mill is more focused on soft clothes—sweatshirts, chinos, weekend shirts—in warmer tones and slouchier fits. In fact, the closest the collection gets to formality is a camp-collar shirt done in navy-and-white pinstripes. Call it meeting attire for the WFH set. In this way, it feels more like Scott Sternberg’s Entireworld than old J.Crew.
Preppy but softer and more inviting, designed with a point of view but not watered down, and consciously produced without being too expensive? The new Alex Mill is a proposition we suspect will please a lot of folks: fans of the “old J.Crew,” and plenty of others, too.
