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Brendon Babenzien is departing his role as the creative director of J.Crew men’s after nearly five years at the retailer. J.Crew has not named a successor.
Babenzien announced his exit Wednesday in an Instagram post shared by Noah, which he said would receive his full attention from now on.
Babenzien was hired by J.Crew Group CEO Libby Wadle in July 2021 to revitalise the label’s menswear just one year after the preppy American mall brand filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. When Babenzien released his first menswear collection in July 2022, he told The Business of Fashion in an interview that he aspired for J.Crew to come back to a time when it “made the best possible products.”
Since then, J.Crew’s business has improved. J.Crew Group, a privately-held company that also owns Madewell, reported record-high sales of $3 billion in 2024. That year, Wadle told BoF that hiring fresh creative talents such as Babenzien and womenswear head of design Olympia Gayot were “really critical” actions in its turnaround.
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During his tenure, Babenzien elevated J.Crew’s profile amongst menswear enthusiasts by re-introducing products such as “Giant-fit” chinos and by launching dedicated J.Crew men’s concepts stores in New York. And by leveraging his decade-plus tenure at Supreme, Babenzien also modernised J.Crew by architecting high-profile collaborations with heritage streetwear retailers like Union and cult-fauvorite menswear labels such as Engineered Garments. And classic J.Crew products that Babenzien pushed to bring back, such as barn coats and rollneck sweaters, helped spur a greater Americana revival that’s continuing to broadly shape contemporary American fashion today.
While the brand hasn’t spoken on his sudden exit, last year, users on Reddit also pointed out that the Instagram account “@jcrewmens” has also disappeared. Before overseeing J.Crew men’s for several years, Babenzien was solely focused on his menswear label Noah, which he originally founded in 2002 and relaunched in 2015. Today, Noah has a flagship in New York along with brick and mortar outposts in Seoul, Tokyo, and Osaka.
Learn more:
J.Crew: How to Build an ‘Ageless’ Brand
As the four-decade-old American retailer projects record sales this year, CEO Libby Wadle unpacks how she and her design team were able to win back alienated customers for the BoF-McKinsey State of Fashion 2025.
