Brooks Brothers features University in clothing line

The collection features V-neck merino and lambswool sweaters, dress shirts, polos and ties, all embellished with the logos and insignias of 15 participating colleges.

According to an Aug. 18 Brooks Brothers press release, the collection hit select retail and campus stores, as well as corresponding online stores, on Aug. 20, and Princeton-themed items have been available at the University Store on Nassau Street since early September.

Brooks Brothers Public Relations Specialist Dana Schiller said that the consumer response to the collection has been positive so far.

“We are very pleased with sales to date. It is a new venture for us but something people have been asking us to do for quite a long time. The [South Eastern Conference] schools have been the strongest overall but certain items, such as ties, have performed very well among the Ivy Schools — Princeton has been particularly good,” Schiller wrote in an email.

At the moment, the collection only features menswear, but women’s clothing will be introduced later in the fall due to increased demand. Schiller explained that they chose to start with some of their staple items before creating a full collection. Brooks Brothers has been gauging initial interest to determine how to expand the line, she added.

“We have more items in store for fall which we believe will appeal to a younger demographic,” Schiller said. “We knew that many women would also want to have Brooks Brothers products representing their school, but we wanted to see what types of items would resonate.”

Confusion regarding Princeton’s involvement in the collection arose when Bloomberg News published an article on June 24 announcing that the upscale retailer would begin selling merchandise featuring the logos of multiple schools, including Princeton and Harvard.

However, University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua was quick to deny the report, and Harvard soon confirmed that it too had not entered into any such licensing agreement with Brooks Brothers.

Then, on July 5, the Yale Daily News reported that although Yale was not included in the original list of featured schools, it had since replaced Harvard for the new line, adding to the speculation of which colleges were actually involved.

Brooks Brothers eventually released an official list of participating schools in August, in which Princeton and Yale were included. Harvard was not on the list.

The other schools featured in the collection are Alabama, Auburn, Boston College, Cornell, Columbia, Georgetown, United States Naval Academy, Notre Dame, New York University, Ohio State, Stanford, Vanderbilt and University of Virginia.

Mbugua attributed the confusion to a misrepresentation of the University’s licensing process. He specifically denied any agreement between the University and Brooks Brothers; rather, Visionary Entertainment Studios Inc., a newly licensed third-party vendor, is distributing the merchandise in the collection to various buyers under the Brooks Brothers label.

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“The Princeton University Store actually is a co-op that operates as a business independent of the University. Our trademark office is aware that VESI has a contract/relationship with Brooks Brothers, but it is not privy to the terms of that contract/relationship,” he said in an email on Wednesday.

University Store president James Sykes and Schiller both suggested that premature news of the collection probably fueled most of the rumors.

Sykes suggested that many assumed all the targeted campus stores would accept Brooks Brothers’ offer of a clothing line.

“The reality was several people didn’t,” he explained in an interview on Tuesday.

“When word leaked out that Brooks Brothers was launching this collection, there was a lot of initial speculation in the press as to which schools were already signed on,” Schiller said.

“Harvard was extraordinarily gracious with us when they were mistakenly added into the coverage,” she added.

Adding to the confusion, Brooks Brothers shot its official promotional video for the Back to Campus Collection at Princeton last spring. The collection features more traditional prep-school designs targeted at a younger audience but not necessarily affiliated with any college. Schiller said that the site was chosen for its picturesque location. The video can now be found on the retailer’s website.

Sykes said he thinks that the collection is still too new to be evaluated for its success but added that he assumes the greatest level of interest will eventually come from students and alumni.

“We will find out more after the Christmas season ... interviewing season and then reunions,” he said. “We need to go through the whole cycle for about a year before we can really evaluate.”

Similar collaborations for Princeton-themed casual and formal attire have been made in the past with vendors including Vantage Apparel and Cutter & Buck, but Sykes has higher hopes for the Brooks Brothers collection.

“We have done dress shirts, sports shirts and better knits in both of those [earlier] collections over the past 10 years. The sales results have been okay, but not great. But we are hoping that Brooks Brothers will prove to be a better performer,” he said.