I sincerely hope that America’s most dependable men’s clothing company isn’t about to go the way of Bud Light or Jaguar, but judging by the ad that just hit my inbox, the prognosis isn’t great.
Talk about storied brands. Brooks Brothers has been around for two centuries, and introduced American shoppers to ready-to-wear suits (1849), the button-down Oxford shirt (1896), plus lightweight seersucker, colorful Madras, and repp ties.
As you can see in the photo above, President Abraham Lincoln wore Brooks Brothers to Ford’s Theater on the night he was assassinated.
Every president since James Madison could be seen wearing Brooks Brothers, with the notable (and oddly paired!) exceptions of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. JFK was a fan, too, and helped popularize the brand beyond its Northeast preppy roots.
For generations, a man knew what to expect when he walked into Brooks Brothers for a new suit, three non-iron shirts for $229, or a nicely cut pair of chinos. You weren’t likely to find anything fashionable, but if you wanted to present yourself as having conservative taste and a timeless sense of style, well, nobody ever got asked to leave a nice restaurant for wearing Brooks Brothers.
If you asked me what to buy for your first (and maybe only) suit, my best advice was, “Just go to Brooks Brothers and have them size you for a sack suit in navy blue.” Add a white dress shirt and a couple of ties, and you’d be set for any wedding, funeral, or court date that might come your way for at least the next five years.
Nevertheless, the company is in trouble, and has been for a long time, as American grownups increasingly insist on dressing like slovenly 14-year-olds.
They’ve tried to adjust. The company brought in designer Thom Browne in 2007 to create a more budget-friendly and fashion-forward line called Black Fleece that was meant to attract younger buyers, but it failed to move the needle and was canceled in 2015. I have a couple of their skinny ties in off-beat winter wool, and really like them.
So Brooks Brothers did what so many other iconic American companies did: It declared bankruptcy in 2020, closed its American factories, sold itself to a brand-management company, and offshored production to save costs.
Boy, did it ever save costs.
And Another Thing: BB brought Black Fleece back in 2024, but this time strictly as high-end label formalwear. Which is fine, because I’m probably too old for skinny ties now, anyway.
You can still get three non-iron shirts for $229, but whatever magic formula Brooks Brothers once used on 100% cotton shirts to make them look great right out of the dryer… yeah, it’s gone. “Non-iron” now means “fortified with Spandex or even nylon,” and if you wonder whether a shirt with nylon in it feels a little like fishing line, the answer is “Yes.”
But the Spandex ones aren’t awful, and at least BB held the line on prices. So if Brooks Brothers isn’t what it once was, at least it’s mostly good enough.
But “good enough” isn’t good enough, and the company’s desperate new pitch to fashion-conscious consumers is the latest example.
Here’s the email I got Wednesday morning:
No, @BrooksBrothers. Just no. pic.twitter.com/Ljr71cQ9Hl
— Stephen Green (@VodkaPundit) April 22, 2026
I’d never heard of Braindead — in no small part because I’m a Brooks Brothers guy. Teaming up with them to create “Brooks Brothers California” is one of those branding mistakes business schools teach in What Not to Do 101.
“Brooks Brothers California” is like “Tie-Dye Wall Street” or “Florida Luging.” More to the point, it’s right down there with “Transgender Bud Light” and “Jaguar That Makes Queer Statements Instead of Cars.”
As for the clothes, see for yourself.
I’m not sure what slapping an oversized and bastardized version of the classic Brooks Brothers logo on a $300-plus sport shirt — still imported, by the way — is supposed to accomplish. But this Braindead/California branding circles right back to Bud Light’s troubles.
Bud Light’s problem wasn’t so much the one-time can honoring faux female Dylan Mulvaney, it was that management decided that their existing customers were icky, and that the brand needed to ditch them for more progressive beer drinkers. The company learned too late that those people were already drinking over-hopped craft beers, and weren’t about to switch to a “frat-boy” beer.
And so, formerly number one Bud Light is now the number two brand behind Modelo.
Honestly, I don’t have any good answers for how to save a mass-market suit-maker in a market where masses of buyers stopped wearing suits, or never even started.
But I do know what not to do.
Buying into an established brand is a lot like joining a club, and when a brand decides to let in people who don’t fit, it turns off the existing members. Longstanding Brook Brothers customers walking into the office wearing a timeless sack suit and repp tie don’t want to be associated with anything called Braindead.
The best thing for Brooks Brothers is that this little experiment fades quickly and is forgotten, like a cheap sweatshirt from China.
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