Search
Log in
  • Home

  • Categories

  • Audiobooks

  • E-books

  • For kids

  • Top lists

  • Help

  • Download app

  • Use campaign code

  • Redeem gift card

  • Try free now
  • Log in
  • Language

    🇩🇰 Danmark

    • DK
    • EN

    🇧🇪 Belgique

    • FR
    • EN

    🇩🇪 Deutschland

    • DE
    • EN

    🇪🇸 España

    • ES
    • EN

    🇫🇷 France

    • FR
    • EN

    🇳🇱 Nederland

    • NL
    • EN

    🇳🇴 Norge

    • NO
    • EN

    🇦🇹 Österreich

    • AT
    • EN

    🇨🇭 Schweiz

    • DE
    • EN

    🇫🇮 Suomi

    • FI
    • EN

    🇸🇪 Sverige

    • SE
    • EN
  1. Books
  2. Nonfiction
  3. Business

Read and listen for free for 14 days!

Cancel anytime

Try free now
4.0(1)

The Kingdom of Prep : The Inside Story of the Rise and (Near) Fall of J.Crew

One of Vogue's most anticipated books of 2023.

A quintessentially American fashion narrative about the rise and fall of the first lifestyle brand, J.Crew, and what the company’s fate means for the shifting landscape of the retail industry.

Once upon a time, a no-frills J.Crew rollneck sweater held an almost mystical power—or at least it felt that way. The story of J.Crew is the story of the original “lifestyle brand,” whose evolution charts a sea change in the way we dress, the way we shop, and who we aspire to be over the past four decades—all told through iconic clothes and the most riveting characters imaginable.

In The Kingdom of Prep, seasoned fashion journalist Maggie Bullock tells J.Crew’s epic story for the first time, bringing to life the deliciously idiosyncratic people who built a beloved brand, unpacking the complex legacy of prep—a subculture born on the 1920s campuses of the Ivy League—and how one brand rose to epitomize “American” style in two very different golden eras, and also eventually embodied the “retail apocalypse” that rocked the global fashion industry and left hollowed-out malls across the country.

In a juicy business narrative rich with humor and insight, Bullock combines the colorful characters of The Devil Wears Prada, the business insight of Deluxe, and the nostalgia factor of True Prep, to chart J.Crew’s origin story, its Obama-era heyday, and its brush-with-death decline through the stories of the mercurial characters who helmed the company. There is founder Arthur Cinader, who set out to sell the Ralph Lauren look for half the price, and his daughter Emily, who turned J.Crew into a new campus uniform, and then a temple to ‘90s minimalism. Then came ex-Gap CEO Mickey Drexler—the most renowned (and controversial) retailer of his generation—who took J.Crew to a never-before-seen peak, only to contribute to its financial disaster, and the brilliant designer Jenna Lyons, who rose from the anonymous ranks of a catalogue company to become a star in her own right, but burned so bright she left J.Crew in her shadow.

Through extensive interviews with more than 100 J.Crew insiders and top industry experts, Bullock crafts an impossible-to-put-down, neon-glitter-sprinkled tale that traces the trajectory of American style, invites us into the inner sanctum of fashion’s most bold-faced names, and weaves together the threads of style, finance, and culture like no other brand’s story in our lifetime.


Author:

  • Maggie Bullock

Narrator:

  • Cheryl Smith

Format:

  • Audiobook

Duration:

  • 13 h 30 min

Language:

English

Categories:

  • Nonfiction
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Arts and photography

Others have also read

Skip the list
  1. Hører du overhovedet efter?!: Fortællinger om at leve med ADHD

    Manu Sareen

    audiobookbook
  2. Wear Your Dreams

    Ed Hardy, Joel Selvin

    audiobook
  3. Fortune's Many Houses : A Victorian Visionary, a Noble Scottish Family, and a Lost Inheritance

    Simon Welfare

    audiobookbook
  4. A Leader’s Guide to Cybersecurity : Why Boards Need to Lead-And How to Do It

    Thomas J. Parenty, Jack J. Domet

    audiobook
  5. En overlevelsesguide for børn med ADHD

    John F. Taylor

    audiobookbook
  6. Red Roulette : An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption and Vengeance in Today's China

    Desmond Shum

    audiobook
  7. Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic

    Richard A. McKay

    audiobook
  8. The Spender's Guide to Debt-Free Living : How a Spending Fast Helped Me Get from Broke to Badass in Record Time

    Anna Newell Jones

    audiobook
  9. Summary, Analysis, and Review of Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow

    Start Start Publishing Notes

    audiobook
  10. ADHD med succes – også uden medicin

    Tine Grønhøj

    book
  11. Kvinder der mister sig selv : Når kærlighed bliver til en ulykkelig kamp

    Nicole Albæk

    audiobookbook
  12. Witness to the Revolution

    Clara Bingham

    audiobook

  • 1 book

    Maggie Bullock

    Maggie Bullock began her career as an editor at Vogue and was ELLE’s deputy editor from 2010 to 2018, overseeing fashion and beauty coverage and reporting on the intersection of style and culture. As a freelance journalist, she has written cover stories and features for the Economist, Vogue, ELLE, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Marie Claire, and New York magazine. She is co-creator of the Spread, a cult-beloved newsletter covering the best of women’s media (www.thespread.media). She lives with her husband and two sons in Amherst, Massachusetts.

    Read more

Help and contact


About us

  • Our story
  • Career
  • Press
  • Accessibility
  • Partner with us
  • Investor relations
  • Instagram
  • Facebook

Explore

  • Categories
  • Audiobooks
  • E-books
  • Magazines
  • For kids
  • Top lists

Popular categories

  • Crime
  • Biographies and reportage
  • Fiction
  • Feel-good and romance
  • Personal development
  • Children's books
  • True stories
  • Sleep and relaxation

Nextory

Copyright © 2025 Nextory AB

Privacy Policy · Terms ·
Excellent4.3 out of 5