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Last Monday, fashion girlies began their week with a pleasant surprise: a new Maryam Nassir Zadeh collection dropped — with a twist. This one’s with J Crew.
It’s the latest in a string of collaborations between legacy mall brands in the midst of comeback bids and cult fashion labels with strong-but-smaller followings: Banana Republic and Peter Do; J Crew and Anna October; Gap and Dôen; and now, J Crew (again) and Maryam Nassir Zadeh (MNZ).
In a year rife as ever with brand collaborations, this formula stands out. And the benefits are clear. The mall brands gain fashion clout to propel their reinvention, while the niche fashion brand expands its reach. It’s a win-win.
It’s not as much of a mismatch as it may seem. “Mall brands were the original cult brands,” says Jessica Quillin, co-founder of luxury strategy agency It’s A Working Title. “If the vibes, product quality, and pricing model are good, uniting a former cult brand with a new cult brand should be a perfect match. It’s mutually beneficial.”
Dôen CEO Margaret Kleveland echoes this sentiment: “We were told time and time again, ‘The collaboration felt like a mash-up of my favourite brand growing up with my favourite brand of today.’”
J Crew x MNZ is making waves online, from fashion X (formerly Twitter) to Substack, much like the other collabs did at launch (Gap x Dôen sold out quickly online). Laura Reilly, writer of Substack Magasin, called it “one of the best things that’s happened in shopping this year”. “It’s got everything,” she wrote in last Wednesday’s newsletter: “An unexpected comeback from a cult brand just as fans were wondering its fate, a cool and confident move from a legacy behemoth flexing its relevance muscles at the naysayers, flirty and clued-in summer pieces, and let’s not forget those prices!!!”. (Everything goes for under $300.)
Fifteen or so years ago, neither side would have needed the other. But in 2024, mall brands are vying to win back consumer dollars; indie brands are navigating an ever-more turbulent wholesale — and wider retail — landscape; and shoppers are struggling to find good quality for good value.
Under the J Crew x MNZ partnership, these factors align, says Olympia Gayot, J Crew women’s creative director. “So many independent designers have to price their items quite high and don’t necessarily have access to the type of production that larger brands do,” she says. “In creating these partnerships, we can make their pieces with incredible resources and prices, which is so appealing to the customer that shops independent designers.” She also acknowledges the marketing opps that a larger brand’s resources affords.
For Zadeh, it also lets her produce pieces she couldn’t under her own brand. The collection is part archives, part new designs. “One portion of the collection is pieces I’ve been dreaming of making for so long,” she says. “But it was hard for me to have the manufacturing capabilities to weave my own fabric, or do embellishment or embroidery” – all elements of the J Crew collection.
“Fashion and luxury e-commerce in general is struggling to find its sea legs against the tidal wave of fast fashion and the creator economy,” Quillin says. “This entire complex retail mix means that fashion brands and mall brands are under equally constant pressure to perform, which may produce new and unexpected partnerships.”
Before landing on the J Crew collab, Zadeh hadn’t shown for a couple of seasons, and had pared back her collections. “I was thinking about whether I wanted to work with investors, or would I want to collaborate with people?” Then she met Gayot.
These collabs — when done right — add cool factor, reach and value. While they can’t fix all of retail’s woes, it’s a welcome injection of buzz and sales.
The right match
The J Crew x MNZ tie-up feels like a success because the clothes are genuinely good, commentators agree. “It’s styling that feels relaxed, summery and has the ‘cool-girl’ feel so many want,” says Sarah Shapiro, fashion executive and author of Substack Sarah’s Retail Diary. This is, in part, down to the harmonious matchup between Zadeh and Gayot, she adds. At a brand cocktail party last week, a fellow journalist echoed this ethos: “It feels right because MNZ feels like Olympia Gayot’s vibe,” she said.
Gayot, for her part, agrees. The pair got to work on the collab after a “blind friend date”. “The idea for the collection was to capture the essence of high summer, travel, inspiration, and the joy of femininity,” Gayot explains. “There are actually so many common threads between Maryam’s iconic brand and that of J Crew.”
But vibes aren’t enough. Shapiro outlines a number of factors required for this formula to work: price point, not enough stores to shop in person, and a limited size range or availability — ironically, the partner brand needs to feel slightly inaccessible, she says. “A mall brand should have more resources to execute at great price points or a larger size range and inventory — that would be the benefit for partnering and allowing new customers to discover,” she says.
Virality also plays a role. “Collabs are in no small way another form of influencer marketing and need to be purposeful and targeted,” Quillin says. Much of the reason these collabs take off is because the independent labels’ dedicated followings post about the drop. Your average Gap consumer probably isn’t going to post about a Gap release with a designer they don’t recognise. But come Gap x Dôen, Dôen fans were out in force.
The same goes for MNZ. “I have always been a fan girl of MNZ, and I know she has this incredibly loyal following of like-minded women around the globe,” J Crew’s Gayot says. “But it was so lovely to also see her collection resonate with a new customer for her.”
“The benefit of both Dôen and MNZ is that there are a bunch of major fashion influencers, stylists and creators that are so passionate about both brands that they have been sharing [the main lines] pre-collab and will immediately share the collab to all their followers,” Shapiro says. This, she adds, played into why Banana Republic x Peter Do didn’t fly off the shelves like the others. “While Peter Do is an incredible designer and brand, I’m not sure there were creators to help engage their community to go wild and get excited for the collab.”
If the price is right
But following and awareness only gets a product so far. The key to this collab format is getting the price right, experts agree.
For the J Crew and MNZ, this was a key focus. “To be able to buy pieces from your favourite independent designer, that you would normally save up for, and buy multiple items is really exciting,” Gayot says of the pricing.
Zadeh says she would love to price her items lower, and that this collab enabled her to do so. “I have my own price point based on my margins, but this is why it was really interesting to do this with J Crew because they have such a different price point and way of manufacturing and doing the merchandising edit. I feel that’s why this was so successful.”
This is where many felt the Banana Republic x Peter Do collaboration fell short. Jackets and coats were going for $700 to $1,200, with online commentators pondering who that price point made sense for. By pricing out the Banana Republic customer, the collaboration is only accessible to luxury shoppers — who are likely to spend their money elsewhere. Others felt the prices were fair, and appealing for Peter Do aficionados who couldn’t afford his main collection (coats go for upwards of $3,000).
But a name like Banana Republic carries with it an air of accessibility. This is where the Gap x Dôen and J Crew x MNZ collabs hit the sweet spot: everything was under $158 and $288, respectively. (Though, notably, both collections were for the summer season, meaning no jackets — which always come with a higher price tag.)
The key is to find a partner brand that is aspirational, not inaccessible. An average Gap shopper might splurge on a piece they love from (actual) Dôen, which sells dresses for $300-odd or MNZ, with heels in the $400s range.
These collabs bring these aspirational brands into the mainstream — for, at least some, consumers to follow them back to their main lines.
Reflecting on the May launch, Dôen’s Kleveland says the collab “undoubtedly” increased the brand’s reach and awareness. The launch day resulted in Dôen’s highest traffic day ever — despite not stocking the collab — and traffic has continued to increase versus pre-collab. Year-to-date traffic and new customers are up over 50 per cent and email subscribers are up over 80 per cent, she says. “Of course, the collaboration is a piece in the holistic brand growth, but no doubt a huge contributor to the awareness we’re seeing,” Kleveland says.
“In the current pop culture and shopping marketplace, there is enough social media content that if you like fashion, you’ve heard of brands you might never buy or see at your local mall,” Shapiro says. “The internet has created an opportunity to learn about brands that might not be at the mall and once you know they’re out there, you want access — whether that is to try on locally and see in person or be able to afford to buy.”
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