Brooks Brothers - Notable Customers

Notable Customers

Brooks Brothers has dressed generations of families, prominent and less famous, as well as political leaders, Hollywood legends, sports greats, and military heroes.

Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Barry Fitzgerald, Nina Foch and Maria Riva, are among a long list of Hollywood celebrities who obtained special attention during the 1940s at Brooks Brothers in Manhattan and they catered to executives in the emerging television industry such as Fred Friendly and Edward R. Kenefick of CBS.

Andy Warhol was known to buy and wear clothes from Brooks Brothers. According to Carlton Walters: "I got to Andy quite well, and he always looked bedraggled: always had his tie lopsided, as he didn't have time to tie it, and he never tied his shoe laces, and he even wore different colored socks, but he bought all of his clothes at Brooks Brothers..."

Brooks Brothers is the official clothier of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra

Brooks Brothers supplies clothes for the television show, Mad Men. In October 2009, Brooks Brothers created a limited edition "Mad Men Edition" suit with the show's costume designer. Chuck Bass and Nate Archibald on the Gossip Girl TV series frequently wear clothes from Brooks Brothers. The young stars of Slumdog Millionaire were all dressed by Brooks Brothers for the 81st Academy Awards. Many on the television show Glee wear Brooks Brothers.(Glee Blog)

Brooks Brothers frequently is sought out by costume designers in Hollywood, dressing stars in such films as, Ben Affleck in Pearl Harbor, Gene Hackman in The Royal Tenenbaums, and Will Smith in Ali. The company produced made-to-measure period costumes for Denzel Washington's The Great Debaters. George Clooney wears Brooks Brothers throughout the film Up in the Air and scenes were shot in a Brooks Brothers airport store. The men of the film The Adjustment Bureau wear Brooks Brothers. In November 2011, Brooks Brothers announced that it had designed a custom wardrobe for Kermit the Frog for the movie The Muppets.

At his second inauguration, United States President Abraham Lincoln wore a coat specially crafted for him by Brooks Brothers. Hand stitched into the coat's lining was a design featuring an eagle and the inscription, "One Country, One Destiny". He was wearing the coat when he was assassinated.

United States President Ulysses S. Grant began his association with Brooks Brothers during the Civil War, when he ordered tailored uniforms for the Union officers in the American Civil War.

President Theodore Roosevelt was fond of Brooks Brothers' clothes: he even ordered his dress uniform for the Spanish-American War at Brooks.

Many more presidents, including Herbert Hoover, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush (who, however, when accused of being a Brooks Brothers Republican, revealed that he was wearing a J. Press suit), and Bill Clinton were known to wear Brooks Brothers clothing lines. Barack Obama wore a Brooks Brothers coat, scarf, and gloves during his inauguration in 2009. Vice President Joe Biden frequently shops at Brooks Brothers in Washington, D.C.

French former president Jacques Chirac also buys his shirts at the Madison shop and by selling.

Stephen Colbert, of the Colbert Report and formerly of The Daily Show and Strangers with Candy, has all of his suits for the Colbert Report supplied by Brooks Brothers.

James Thurber refers to Brooks Brothers shirts in some of his short stories. Kurt Vonnegut also refers to a Brooks Brothers suit worn by the main character in his book, Jailbird.

In the novel, Junkie, by William S. Burroughs, an addict trades what he claims is a Brooks Brothers jacket for two caps of heroin.

Richard Yates not only wore Brooks Brothers clothing throughout his life, but he often referred to the brand in his writing, notably in A Good School, in which one of the characters tries to hang himself with a Brooks Brothers belt.

Bret Easton Ellis refers to clothing from Brooks Brothers worn by Patrick Bateman and his colleagues in his controversial novel, American Psycho.

The lead character Lestat de Lioncourt in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles often describes himself to be wearing suits by Brooks Brothers.

Novelist W.E.B. Griffin often has included mention of Brooks Brothers military uniforms, Dress uniform and Dress Mess uniform in particular, in his best-selling Brotherhood Of War and The Corps book series.