Brooks Brothers - History

History

On April 7, 1818, at the age of forty-five, Henry Sands Brooks opened H. & D. H. Brooks & Co. on the northeast corner of Catherine and Cherry streets in Manhattan. He proclaimed that his guiding principle was, "To make and deal only in merchandise of the finest body, to sell it at a fair profit, and to deal with people who seek and appreciate such merchandise." In 1850, his three sons, Elisha, Daniel, and John, inherited the family business and renamed the company "Brooks Brothers."

In its early history, Brooks Brothers was most widely known for introducing the ready-to-wear suit to American customers. In the late nineteenth century, Brooks Brothers tailored many distinctive uniforms for elite regiments of the New York National Guard, as well as uniforms for New York state troops during the Civil War. These contracts for uniforms were notorious as an example of corruption in how they were obtained and the poor quality of the clothing delivered, the uniforms often having been made of pressed rag so that they fell apart in the first rains.

The Golden Fleece symbol was adopted as the company's trademark in 1850. A sheep suspended in a ribbon had long been a symbol of British woollen merchants. Dating from the fifteenth century, the image had been the emblem of the Knights of the Golden Fleece, founded by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. In Classical Greek mythology, a magical flying ram, or Golden Fleece, was sought by Jason and the Argonauts.

The last member of the Brooks family to head the company was Winthrop Holly Brooks, who ran the company from 1935 until its sale in 1946, when the company was acquired by Julius Garfinckel & Co. Although Winthrop Brooks remained with the company as a figurehead, after the acquisition, John C. Wood became the director of Brooks Brothers. Just prior to that, Wood had been the carrier of the papers for the Dumbarton Oaks Conference. Under the leadership of Wood, Brooks Brothers became even more traditional.

By 1969, ten Brooks Brothers stores were in operation and located in Manhattan, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C., as an integral part of the retail conglomerate Garfinckel, Brooks Brothers, Miller & Rhoads, Inc., that held the company until 1981 when it was acquired by Allied Stores.

Brooks Brothers was acquired by the British firm, Marks and Spencer plc, in 1988. In 2001, Marks & Spencer sold Brooks Brothers to Retail Brand Alliance ("RBA"), now known as The Brooks Brothers Group, a company privately owned by Italian billionaire Claudio del Vecchio (son of Luxottica founder Leonardo del Vecchio). Beside Brooks Brothers, RBA comprises Carolee, a designer of jewelry for department stores and specialty stores. In 2007 RBA sold its high end women's brand Adrienne Vittadini.