Rowing Blazers founder Jack Carlson has a brand new gig.
The 38-year-old Carlson, who exited the model he based in March, has been named inventive director and president of J. Press. His first assortment will debut on Thursday throughout New York Vogue Week, which can mark the model’s first look on the style calendar.
“I grew up with J. Press,” stated Carlson. “I used to go to the store in Harvard Sq., and lots of the first fits, shirts, ties and belts I purchased for myself have been J. Press. I nonetheless have them. This function appears like coming dwelling in some ways. I studied the classics (actually), and to me, a number of what J. Press does is sort of sacred: the button-downs, the khakis, the blazers, the Shaggy Canines. J. Press has additionally had a barely irreverent streak that resonates with me too. I wish to have a good time all of that; to construct seasonal collections and collaborations round it; and to share it with extra individuals. J. Press is an establishment — in some ways, the final of its form.”
J. Press was based on the campus of Yale College in New Haven, Conn., in 1902. Since then the corporate has change into synonymous with Ivy League model corresponding to navy blazers, soft-shouldered fits, oxford material button-downs, khaki trousers, repp ties, schoolboy scarves, and its signature Shaggy Canine sweater.
J. Press was purchased by its Japanese licensee Onward Holdings in 1986. Even so, the majority of its assortment is made within the U.S., augmented by England, Scotland, Eire, Japan, Canada, Austria and Norway.
Carlson’s debut J. Press assortment for fall 2025 is a colourful celebration of Ivy model and can embody a purple tailcoat and a Tyrolian Janker, nods to the time Carlson spent residing in Oxford and Kitzbühel. Different editorial items will embody boatneck knits and an assortment of equipment handcrafted in New York from classic felt faculty pennants, some practically a century previous. Carlson has additionally introduced again the unique J. Press “Ivy” blazer format (with a patch, slightly than set-in pocket on the chest) and reinstated the model’s classic, red-on-white label design throughout classes.
“Jack brings a uncommon mixture of historic reverence and contemporary perspective,” Onward stated in an announcement. “His potential to have a good time the model’s heritage, and to additionally current J. Press by a contemporary editorial lens makes him the perfect chief for our subsequent chapter. We consider that is the start of a brand new period for J. Press, one that may strengthen our place because the definitive identify in American menswear.”
J. Press at present operates three shops within the States: New York Metropolis, New Haven and Washington, D.C. The plan going ahead, Onward informed WWD, is to increase the corporate’s footprint within the U.S.
“The appointment of Jack Carlson marks step one in Onward Holdings’ imaginative and prescient to place J. Press on the forefront of American menswear, and sit alongside different historic leaders within the area.
“We plan to develop our present enterprise roughly tenfold by 2030. At the moment, we function three shops. Our plan is to introduce two to a few new retail areas within the U.S. in 2026 to increase our footprint and showcase our full way of life providing underneath Jack’s course. Past brick-and-mortar, we plan to deal with investing and rising our e-commerce enterprise.”
Jack Carlson will modernize J. Press’s Ivy League-inspired aesthetic.
Carlson will not be the primary American to be inventive director of J. Press. A bit of over a decade in the past, the corporate introduced the Ovadia Brothers on board as consulting inventive administrators. They created a line referred to as York Avenue, a younger-skewed Ivy League-inspired assortment. However that line, and a devoted retailer on Bleecker Avenue, have been shuttered after 4 seasons.
Carlson has a Ph.D. in archaeology from Oxford College, was a coxswain on the U.S. nationwide rowing staff and is the writer of “A Humorous Information to Heraldry” and “Rowing Blazers,” a coffeetable ebook in regards to the “genuine striped, piped, trimmed and badged” jackets worn by oarsman all over the world. He created the model as an irreverent redefinition of what’s usually considered because the stuffy preppy aesthetic. His myriad collaborations with everybody from Gucci to Noah, Goal and J.Crew additionally helped put the model on the map. Carlson additionally used Rowing Blazers as a car to relaunch a number of heritage manufacturers, together with British knitwear label Heat & Fantastic, finest recognized for its sheep sweater worn by Diana, Princess of Wales.
In February 2024, Carlson bought a majority stake in his firm to Burch Artistic Capital, an funding agency based by Tory Burch cofounder Chris Burch, in addition to buyers Tom Vellios, cofounder of 5 Beneath, and Jason Epstein, accomplice at Stonecourt Capital. As a part of the deal, Carlson continued to function inventive director of the model. However he exited the model utterly a few yr later.