Suzie Q's Fun Facts:
Ironically (considering its aspirational flavor), J. Crew began its life in 1947 as "Popular Club Plan," which sold low-priced women's clothing via in-home demonstrations. It wasn't until 1989 that Popular Club Plan was renamed to J. Crew and opened its first retail store.
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It used to be that J. Crew outlets were really true outlets - meaning, you could come here to snag excess or slightly irregular clothing that had originally been manufactured for the retail and catalog channels. As such, you could typically find same-season (or recent past-season) merchandise at a fraction of the original price, with no decrease in quality.
Sadly, those days are long gone. On a recent visit to this J. Crew Factory store, a sales associate here seemed unembarrassed to admit that J. Crew Factory was now a separate (read: cheaper and lower-quality) line with no crossover with its big brother.
Armed with that knowledge, it would have been hard for me to stomach buying any of the poor-quality crap filling this Factory store - especially at the seemingly-inflated prices that I saw (even with post-holiday discounts). So while I looked at their stuff, especially jewelry, I would have preferred paying more for regular-store merchandise (which might not vary that much in price from its down-market little brother's stuff).
So I walked out of this J. Crew Factory without buying anything whatsoever. read more