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J Brand, the Los Angeles-based premium denim brand owned by the Fast Retailing Group, is pivoting to a direct-to-consumer model.
The brand, which has been sold in better department and specialty stores globally since its founding in 2005, will rely exclusively on direct distribution starting with the summer 2021 collection.
“J Brand’s current business model is not aligned with the vision we have for its future. The change in direction will bring energy and focus back to a celebrated denim brand in what has become an increasingly saturated marketplace,” said Kazumi Yanai, chairman of J. Brand Inc. and group senior executive officer of Fast Retailing.
The Fast Retailing Jeans Innovation Center, which opened in L.A. in 2016, will continue to innovate sustainable, next-generation denim development and support denim production for the group’s brands globally, including the future J Brand assortment.
As a result of the change in business strategy, the current J Brand workforce will be reduced in coming months in proportion to the needs of the new corporate structure.
Yanai emphasized Fast Retailing’s commitment to J Brand and the denim category. “The reality of the denim market today and our ability to figure in it…
LOS ANGELES — J Brand, the Los Angeles-based premium denim label owned by Japan’s Fast Retailing Co. Ltd., is setting the foundation to build a lifestyle business bolstered by freestanding stores through the hiring of key design and merchandising executives.
J Brand named Mary Bruno as head of design, Ellen Ahlbom as senior vice president of sales and merchandising for the women’s market and Tony Strippoli as senior vice president of sales and merchandising for the men’s component. All newly created positions, these appointments are intended not only to lead to the opening of its first freestanding store — possibly in 2016 — but also to boost its profitability, which underperformed in the third quarter and contributed to its parent company in July cutting the forecast for its full-year net profit.
J Brand is also borrowing cues from Theory, another Fast Retailing-owned brand, whose cofounder, Andrew Rosen, is interim chief executive officer at J Brand.
“We’re building out the structure very comparably to Theory,” said Lynne Koplin, president of J Brand. “We need to start thinking the way a retailer thinks.”
J Brand already dabbles in direct-to-consumer retail. Its e-commerce business makes up less than 10 percent of total…