I’ll never forget the look on my college roommate Marcus’s face when I unwrapped a brand-new L.L.Bean Norwegian sweater freshman year. It was 2003, George W. Bush was president, Von Dutch trucker hats were a thing, and somehow I had spent close to $100 of my life savings from my summer job on an aggressively chunky bird’s-eye pattern sweater that screamed “grandpa going fishing!” “Dude,” Marcus asked earnestly. “Are you OK?” “Are you having a breakdown or something?” At the time his concern was valid.
Where as every other boy on campus wore Abercrombie polos and boot-cut jeans that they’d washed 853 times to get that “cool wrinkled” look, suddenly I was wearing something that looked like a kitchen gnome crammed me into a New England clambake circa 1965. Heritage brands were the antithesis of cool in the early 2000s – the sartorial equivalent of dad jokes and AOL email handles. Flash-forward to last week.
I’m sitting in a coffee shop in downtown Manhattan when a group of NYU students bustles in. I do a double take so severe I nearly pour my expensive iced coffee all over myself.
Three perfect specimens of Zoomer they were: What with their Fitzroy Co. beanie hats and – inexplicably – the same sweater I had tried to wear proudly thirteen years prior.
Norwegian sweaters. Bean boots. Faded Levi’s.
Barbour jackets. I wasn’t hallucinating: All three had L.L.Bean catalogs clutchedin their hands. One of them even wore an actual Hamilton watch that looked like it had been passed down for generations.
They looked amazing. Not just trendy – they looked easy in their clothes. Effortlessly composed in a way that’s rare to see in Manhattan.
It was another L.L.Bean moment, happening to millennials and Gen Z-ers who’d somehow stumbled upon the same terrifying realization I had when I bought my dad-core sweater all those years ago. The truth is, it’s happening everywhere. Heritage brands that were supposedly on their last legs a decade ago are suddenly becoming America’s most fashionable brands.
From Pendleton rediscovering its street cred to Ralph Lauren quietly securing his legacy with generations to come, legacy brands across multiple industries are enjoying unlikely resurgences with young consumers. So what gives? Why are brands young people swore they’d never wear making ironic non-sequiturs into fashion departments at colleges across the country?
And what makes certain heritage brands blow up with younger consumers while others remain as firmly stuck in “dad terrain” as ever? I spent the last six months trying to answer those questions. I talked to brand executives at heritage companies, retail buyers for major stores and brands hitting with younger customers, and Gen Z-ers and millennials shopping these brands.
I found that the answers are sometimes unexpected, and always more complex than they seem. “There are so many reasons it’s happening right now,” Jessica Monroe, a retail analyst who specializes in generational shopping habits, told me when I asked her about the resurgence. “For starters, these younger shoppers have had way more exposure to ‘real’ clothes than past generations. You know, clothes that aren’t going to fall apart after two washes. They’re also dealing with nostalgia fatigue from their Boomer parents.
So yeah, Target sales are down across the board – but ‘classic’ brands feel new again to these customers because they offer authenticity and genuine usefulness that is rare right now.” That’s a word I heard over and over from everyone I spoke with about this trend: Authenticity. In a world where everything else feels online, curated, and – at times – even wholly artificial, heritage brands offer something refreshingly real. Sure, they tell a story about heritage and history, but that story extends far beyond a neatly manufactured brand narrative.
When you wear Patagonia, you’re not just wearing cancer fighter Mitt Romney’s favorite outdoor clothing company. You’re wearing a company that has been actively working in environmental conservation since it was founded in 1973. That history is real.
And there’s something to be said about purchasing something that genuinely existed before you were born. Brands like Filson, Levi’s, Barbour, and hundreds more offer quintessentially American stories that transcend marketing and go straight to the core of what the brand actually is. Filson, for example, was founded in Seattle in 1897 to supply prospectors heading west for the Klondike Gold Rush.
For over a century, Filson supplied items to loggers, outdoorsmen, and others that needed incredibly durable gear for the extreme conditions of the Pacific Northwest. Filson never chased trends. They never rebranded for summer or winter.
They made clothes and bags designed to last decades. Today, there’s a renewed appreciation for that ethos from consumers who are tired of throwing away their clothes every few years. At Filson’s flagship store last fall I watched old men buying wax to maintain their sixty-year-old coats while young urban professionals tried on Filson jackets that likely cost more than their monthly rent.
Filson appeals to all of them because they make everything to the same exact standards as they have for over a century. “There’s no way my Pura fleece is going to fall apart like that other fleece I bought,” Victor Navarro, a 30-year-old physical therapist from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, told me. “When you buy these brands you already know you’re gonna have it for a long time. That feels new again.” Consumer desire for quality clothes that last is another major theme I found in my reporting. Millennials and Gen Z-ers have grown up with cheap clothing.
Shopping at thrift stores and depop isn’t revolutionary or cool, it’s necessity. In a world where clothes are designed to fall apart after a few wears, young consumers have had to become thrifty to afford a wardrobe. But as many of these young consumers enter adulthood and start careers, they’re becoming willing to spend more up front for clothes that will last.
They’ve realized that just because something is cheap, doesn’t mean it’s affordable. “The concept of buying something to last you a lifetime is weird for people who grew up shopping at H&M and Zara,” Monroe said. “Quality always costs more. But these brands have found ways to reach younger customers without compromising on the things that have made them great for years.” (Or in some cases, decades.) Collaborations with contemporary brands have been key to heritage brands feeling current while still preserving their authenticity. On its face letting someone else put their name on your 132-year-old brand seems like heresy.
But collaborations with modern brands have allowed heritage brands to appeal to younger consumers without alienating their core customer base. Todd Snyder x L.L.Bean is the standout example of this done right. Todd Snyder, one of menswear’s most respected designers, spent months going through Bean’s archival pieces to help modernize their classic offerings.
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By letting Snyder rediscover their own brand, Bean was able to offer modern twists on old classics without losing their brand identity. “We didn’t want to change Bean,” Todd Snyder told me over Zoom. “We wanted to help people who maybe didn’t grow up with Bean see how cool they really are.” That ‘cool factor’ is important. No matter how durable your jeans are, if they don’t look good young people aren’t buying them. Every heritage brand I spoke with understood that they needed to show younger consumers how these classic pieces could work in a modern wardrobe.
While Carhartt will always be Carhartt, seeing them styled on modèle like Tyler, the Creator has made them suddenly relevant to people who’d otherwise consider them swearjar content. Context is king. Traditional heritage brands often fail with younger consumers when they market solely to their established consumer bases.
Miller Lite hasn’t changed their brand messaging in decades, and they’re doing just fine selling millions of gallons of beer a year. When you’re selling to the kids wearing Goose chaps as trousers, you have to change your tactics slightly. “Younger consumers are more diverse than previous generations,” Monroe said. “They don’t all love the outdoors like previous generations. So while some still care about that vintage outdoor chic look, others just want sturdy jeans they can wear everywhere.” Case in point: Red Wing boots.
America’s favorite boot company has always made boots for miners, farmers, factory workers; people who needed boots that could withstand long hours of outdoor labor. They still do. And they’ll probably continue to do so for decades to come.
Except these days loggers aren’t the only people buying Red Wings. Young urbanites buy just as many boots as their downstate construction counterparts. Yet Red Wing hasn’t changed how they manufacture their boots or market their brand.
What’s changed is they’ve allowed different consumers to understand how their boots can fit into their lifestyle. “We’re not changing who we’re marketing to,” Sarah Williams, Red Wing’s marketing director, said. “We’re just widening the pool by showing how versatile our boots can be. Put a pair of Iron Rangers on Luka Doncic and Billy Ray Cyrus. They’re both ours now.” That flexibility to change marketing without changing what you actually sell is key to understanding what heritage brands are doing right.
All brands are selling stories. Whether it’s Harley Davidson’s new Live Free storyline or Outdoor Voices rallying cries of empowerment, companies are selling themselves as much as their actual product. For better or worse.
When companies like Woolrich, Pendleton, and Filson greenlight campaigns that focus solely on the lifestyles of yesteryear, they’re alienating young consumers who don’t see themselves reflected in that outdated marketing. When Woolrich highlights how their Woolrich Milujee shirt can be worn in the city as easily as the mountains, they’re showing younger consumers that they can wear these clothes too. Greenwashing is another risk these brands face.
A double-edged sword that has cut short the reputations of otherwise well-intentioned companies. Yet unlike startup brands who can lean into their sustainability angle from day one, heritage brand preach lifecycle. These brands have sold repairability and lifetime guarantees long before that became a marketing buzzword.
They aren’t narratively greenwashing by speaking about sustainability – their products have always been sustainable. That point can’t be stressed enough. Sustainability isn’t a fad.
But in a world where it’s hard to find brands that legitimately practice what they preach, heritage brands offer that authenticity young consumers find so appealing. When they say their clothes will last a lifetime, they actually mean it. “When I go thrift shopping, I find a lot of stuff that claims to be built ‘like grandma’s,’” Nicholas Young, a graduate student and vintage shopper, told me. “But then I wash it and it falls apart after the first cycle. With vintage clothing, you know what you’re getting.
Companies that have been around this long obviously know how to build clothing that lasts.” Heritage brands have also been fortunate enough to operate during a bit of a cultural resurgence of American manufacturing. Brands like Shrinky’s, Twin Fellows, and Banjo Hollyweird are cashing in on renewed interest in Americana, carving out their own niches in clothing and accessories that feel unabashedly American. There’s Rustication hats, Levi’s EDITIONS exploring subcultures across the country, Patagonia heli-ski jackets – that all speak to this wider trend of celebrating and capitalizing on uniquely American aesthetics. “The clothing that defined so many of us in the ‘90s and early 2000s were these ultra slim fits, plain white tees, selvedge jeans,” Coggins told me. “We’re seeing now is a natural reaction.
People are craving comfort and texture. Loose fits. Soft denims.
Everything feels so highly curated and direct-marketed right now, it’s refreshing to go back to something that doesn’t scream ‘I’m cool!’” One of the strengths of this current wave of heritage brand revitalization is that it’s happening across multiple industries. Shaver companies like Gillette and Winfield are suddenly cool again. Heritage fashion brands not commonly associated with “Americana” – Oakley, Stussy, Found – are making comebacks amongst young consumers.
Even vintage is having a moment within a trend celebrating new pieces with vintage aesthetics. Case in point: Taschen’s new collection of vintage Field & Stream magazines from the 1930s. Printed on high-quality glossy stock in monstrous sizes, they showcase hunting, fishing, and camping in America before they became homogenized and sold at Cabela’s.
It’s retail nostalgia porn, and young outdoor enthusiasts are buying them up faster than they can print them. As cool as all this is, the heritage brand revival is not without risks. For brands that successfully captured the hearts (and wallets) of young consumers, there is a very real risk of losing that authenticity by chasing relevancy too hard.
Does Millennial Pink Eddie Bauer camping blanket really scream, “Eddie Bauer has stood the test of time”?
No! But when brands pivot too far in an attempt to court younger consumers they sacrifice the very thing that made them cool to begin with. “It’s like skinny jeans all over again,” Monroe said. “If you tack on ‘for millennials’ onto your brand, you’re instantly losing customers.
These brands have to be careful to walk that line between modernizing certain elements but staying true to what made them great.” Needless to say, not all heritage brands are back. Some pivoted too hard. Some didn’t pivot at all.
And some simply won’t reach younger generations no matter what they do. But for every brand selling heritage-inspired crap to young consumers who won’t wear clothes longer than a couple seasons, there are more brands successfully marrying vintage aesthetics with modern quality and brand storytelling. It’s led to a fascinating rebirth of clothes I thought my college roommate wouldn’t survive wearing.
Clothes that inspire cross-generational conversations about clothes. Clothes that might, against all odds in the age of planned obsolescence, actually last a lifetime. I still have that stupid Norwegian sweater.
