Peck & Peck
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Peck & Peck was a New York-based retailer of private label women's wear prominent on Fifth Avenue.[1] Founded by Edgar Wallace Peck and his brother George H. Peck[2], it began in New York in 1888[3] as a hosiery store, with early location near Madison Square.[4] At Edgar Peck's death, Time magazine reported that the brothers once had to pay rent every 24 hours to a distrusting landlord,[5] but now had 19 stores. [6] It grew to 78 stores across the United States.
Peck & Peck was purchased in the 1970s by the Minneapolis-based retailing company Salkin & Linoff and, through a combination of poor/in-bred family management and widely decentralized locations, the chain was basically shut down and sold off in pieces.[7] Some specific store locations of the chain were sold by Salkin & Linoff in the mid/late 1980s to H.C. Prange (a few single stores may remain).
Peck & Peck was known for its classic clothes. Like Bonwit Teller and B. Altman and Company's post-World War II fashions, Peck & Peck personified and flourished in the pre-hippie era in New York[8] when WASP fashion ruled stores and fashion magazines.[9] The store had the distinction of being listed in Lisa Birnbach's The Official Preppy Handbook as one of the late, great "prep" retailers, along with New York stores like Best & Co. and Abercrombie & Fitch, both since revived.
To writers like Joan Didion, Peck & Peck was descriptor and shorthand for a certain fashion look.[10] Some say that Hillary Clinton has a Peck & Peck look.[11] A store classic was the simple A-shaped dress.
Other fashion retailers that grew in the wake of the closure of Peck & Peck were Ann Taylor and Talbots.
[edit] Links
- 1990 Article on H.C. Prange Ownership
- Salkin & Linoff Bankruptcy, History
- Joint promotion with Capital Airlines
- Second Capital Airlines Joint Advertising Promotion
- Jim Peck, Lead Freedom Rider
[edit] References
- ^ TIME article detailing retail stores that have failed on Fifth Avenue
- ^ NYT Wedding Notice of Dorothy Peck, granddaughter of founder
- ^ Search on Peck & Peck Trademark Registration
- ^ Essay titled Fifth Avenue - The Best Address by Jerry E. Patterson
- ^ "Milestones", Time, November 5, 1928
- ^ Milestones Time magazine column noting Edgar Peck's 1928 death
- ^ St. Louis Park Historical Society - Salkin and Linoff
- ^ Book review on In The Place To Be by Guy Trebay. ISBN 1-56639-208-X
- ^ Gadfly Online article detailing Peck & Peck's devotion to White Anglo-Saxon Protestants
- ^ Essay titled On Keeping a Notebook by Joan Didion
- ^ Jewish World Review article titled Hillary's Faithless by Sam Schulman
