Malls May Be Dead But Mall Brands Have Never Been More Alive
Mall brands have evolved beyond the need for malls. Just call 'em "brands," now. Extremely vital brands.
Now, that first point may be up for debate — some posit that, despite popular opinion, malls are undergoing a sort of metamorphosis and aren't quite dead — but the latter is not.
Formerly staid labels like GAP, J.Crew, Banana Republic and Abercrombe & Fitch are instead becoming increasingly covetable as their once-shakey financials find impressive footing.
These clothing companies once held it down as the cornerstones of America's shopping malls but they're currently riding a wave back to the forefront of closets around the country and beyond.
Part of the concurrent mall brand makeover is down to savvy rebrands set in motion years ago, scoring crucial wins from young shoppers only a few decades removed from becoming mallrats themselves. Part of it is new creative direction and trend-conscious management that's clawing terrain back from new-gen upstarts and ultra-fast fashion companies, attaining impressive stability in the increasingly competitive region of ultra-approachable casualwear — i.e. mall fashion.
And it's all happening simultaneously.
Abercrombie's rebrand, so exhaustively heralded online that even its summer shirts notch headlines, has proven so successful that its marketable wins have inspired case studies. Once inextricable from its intentionally curated aura of exclusivity, Abercrombie's stores and website now look coolly inviting (and maybe even a little familiar). In other words: Out with the shirtless beefcake, in with on-trend apparel that's a little more patient and a lot more considered than the ultra-fast fashion fare of competitors like SHEIN.
The new Abercrombie clothes and presentation both borrow from winningly TikTok-able trends; the womens' section leans more than a little quiet luxury while the mens' offering dabbles in Instagram-friendly streetwear grunge. A little Khaite here, a little Aimé Leon Dore there.
Terrifically tempting, especially for the school-age shoppers in Abercrombie's target demo who likely can't afford either.
Meanwhile, under the direction of NOAH founder Brendon Babenzien, J.Crew's slightly more mature menswear client is savoring a similarly more urbane shopping experience.
At its core, classically wearable clothes that're a little prep and a little rugged. They're steeped in versatility but not without virality. Following Babenzien's arrival, for instance, J.Crew enjoyed a snappy viral hit with its Giant Chino and steadily served newness with tasteful collaborators too cool to ever partner with the mall brands of yesteryear.
Appropriately, mere months after the New York Times proclaimed that J.Crew had again found its way, the nearly 80-year-old company staked its claim with flagship stores in New York's SoHo neighborhood, six years after its previous locations in the area closed.
Moneywise, we're not quite talking Madewell figures — J.Crew's sibling company is still faring far stronger — but J.Crew isn't slipping, either.
And for an even more mature client, a comparable sense of accessible urbanity has lead the way at the retooled Banana Republic. Its CEO promised that the retailer would become a "quiet luxury destination" going into 2024 (that Peter Do collaboration was basically a mission statement), ushering in classy campaign photos and logo-free wardrobe staples.
Finding its footing Banana Republic opened its own splashy store in SoHo mere weeks prior to J.Crew.
Key to this mallcore movement is that all age ranges are being served. But what's happening at the flagship label of BR parent company GAP is a true return to form.
While it was intentionally moving into a more street-casual space with a series of smart collaborations with culturemakers like Dapper Dan, Sean Wotherspoon and Palace Skateboards, GAP was also enjoying TikTok-driven hoodie virality and share prices shored up at least partially by an incidental youth boom.
Its July 2024 team-up with hyper-buzzy (and LVMH-powered) Madhappy perhaps is the single most perfect cap for GAP's recent winning streak, reflecting GAP's abrupt popularity Gen Z popularity through a partner label only too (mad)happy to lens a campaign steeped in overt homage to the visuals of GAP's '90s heyday.
A full-circle moment even for the mallrat never-beens.
The mall craze is universal. Even though it primarily isn't still tethered to IRL shopping centers, the biggest gains are still being made with young shoppers who're attracted to trendy clothes and reasonable pricepoints, but increasingly wary of digital-native brands with spotty human rights records.
As such, this ongoing post-mall surge has swept up former mall anchors like Limited Too, Claires and Victoria's Secret, which all hope to ride the wave into Gen Z fame with their own forthcoming revivals.
Victoria's Secret is one of the few contemporary non-success stories among the mall brand set, though, its previous dominance dinged by the rise of athleisure giants and celeb-fronted shapewear titans. But that the VS reconfiguration is still being hashed out speaks to the ascent of mall brands keen to strike while the iron's hot.
And then there are the pseudo mall brands: Retailers that specialize in fast-casual fare but are too new to have ever actually existed in ye olde malls.
COS, the nearly 15-year-old H&M sub-label, is coming into its own with big plans for expansion while Brandy Melville, the worryingly enigmatic (and unpleasantly Randian) one-size tweenwear maker, modestly opened a new store that sells slightly larger clothes. As in size medium.
These newcomers are the exception though: A shocking number of today's most relevant mid-budget companies are actually the really, really old (and corporate) ones, the ones old enough to sit across from Macy's, with an Auntie Annie's cart in between. Old dog learns new trick, recaptures the audience that was once its bread and butter a generation ago.
Maybe there actually is hope for IRL malls yet.
