When Dr. Jack Carlson left the company he founded, Rowing Blazers, in 2025, he wasn’t idle for long. Fast-forward six months, and he was officially named Creative Director and President of Ivy heritage brand J. Press.
For someone who holds a doctoral degree in Roman and Chinese archaeology, was on the U.S. national rowing team from 2011 to 2016, and spent his teenage years buying J. Press ties and Madras shirts from the Harvard Square location; it felt like a natural fit to lead such a storied company.
Carlson came into the fashion industry without much interest in looking at the latest runway shows or what was trending in fashion magazines. He’s still using that same lens a year into his tenure at J. Press: “It’s more about looking at the history and the meanings that we ascribe to clothes—the details, the cloth, the way it fits, the stripe of a tie, and the pattern of a tartan,” he says.
Since taking the helm, Carlson has been hard at work reviving the Ivy League-style company, starting with three runway shows, the most recent of which took place last month at Capitale on the Bowery. The Fall/Winter 2026 offering is built around American tailoring and British mills, including a Barbour collaboration and the brand’s first women’s capsule in fifty years.
Beyond appealing to a wider, younger audience without loosening the heritage reins too much, Carlson’s other mission is to get customers to drop into J. Press shops, too. J. Press’s parent company, Onward Holdings, would love to open up to 20 stores by 2030, and they’re headed in the right direction going into the brand’s 125th year. A new store at 340 Madison Avenue now occupies the southwest corner of 44th and Madison.
Back in July, before the most recent runway show, I had a chance to speak with Carlson, who’s also been dubbed the Indiana Jones of menswear, about shopping at J. Press, how he’s making the brand feel more inclusive, nerding out over teasel plants, and why relaunching women’s was important for the brand.
C/O Greg Kessler, KesslerStudio
You have a doctorate in archaeology from Oxford. How did that background unexpectedly prepare you to lead a brand with as much history as J. Press?
Well, all these things are connected in my head, and in how I think about things and look at the world. I studied Roman archaeology and Chinese archaeology—Qin and Han Dynasty China. So that’s basically the same period as the Roman Empire.
On paper, they’re not very connected, but part of what I studied was the visual trappings of status and power, and that includes clothes to some extent. You know, that’s sort of how I think about and look at clothing.
It’s not like I came into this because I was really interested in looking at the latest runway shows or what was trending in fashion magazines. It’s more about looking at the history and the meanings that we ascribe to clothes. The details, the cloth, the way it fits, the stripe of a tie, and the pattern of a tartan. That was how I came into this world, and that is kind of archaeology in a way.
And Rowing Blazers came out of a book I wrote, which is literally about the blazers that are worn in the sport of rowing. It’s very much about the meanings, traditions, history, and the sort of quirky rituals and the anthropology, in a way, behind these blazers and other accoutrements. Ties, caps, badges, buttons, pins, striped socks and all kinds of things in that world.
And now, in my role at J. Press, all of that is very relevant to this brand as well. It’s a brand with a very rich history. It’s a brand with a deep archive, and it’s a brand where there’s meaning, there are connotations, and there’s depth to everything.
Whether it’s the hook center vent, the soft shoulder, which way the stripes go on the tie, certain regimental stripes that come up again and again for J. Press, or some of the emblems or graphics that are used on ties and belts.
Yes, part of it is aesthetic, and it’s about how it looks and whether it looks good. Does it look flattering? Does it fit well? Is it a durable cloth? Is it functional? Yes, that’s all part of it as well. But where do we get those aesthetic judgments from? A lot of it is from history and from anthropology and the meanings and traditions behind it. And that’s so central to J. Press as a brand.
So that’s a long-winded way of saying, I think, while I don’t need to know the details of the Arch of Constantine to do my job at J. Press, the way of thinking about things from an archaeological and, to some extent, historical and anthropological perspective is all very relevant to my job now.
C/O J. Press
Do you remember your first J. Press piece? What did it feel like putting it on for the first time?
I think I bought a tie from J. Press when I was probably in eighth grade.
I loved going into J. Press in Harvard Square. It’s not like I was buying a lot of suits or anything back then. I wasn’t exactly that kid, but I loved looking at all the ties and little accessories. I had a lot of belts from J. Press also, very early on. I have a Madras tie that I bought at J. Press probably when I was in ninth or tenth grade.
But it was very cool going into that store. It felt like it had been there forever. You had all the old pictures on the walls, letters from the White House. I went to high school in Cambridge, Massachusetts—all the old pictures going back to probably the ’20s, I would say, of the rowing team from my high school on the wall, and some of the oars.
And it’s funny, you think they would have Harvard oars and Harvard crews, but they didn’t. They had the high school, maybe because it’s kind of a Yale brand at its heart, so they wanted something local, but not Harvard exactly.
But it was just such a cool thing. Like those types of stores, like J. Press in New Haven, or the old J. Press store in Cambridge. It’s the closest that you get in real life—if I can be very millennial for a second—to, like, when Harry Potter goes in to pick out his wand.
J. Press NYC Flagship Store on 44th and Madison
C/O J. Press, Alex Arnold
For some people, Ivy style can feel exclusive or elitist. How are you making sure the J. Press of today feels welcoming instead?
I’ve always thought Ivy style, preppy style, whatever you want to call it, is for everyone. I think just through my work at Rowing Blazers and at J. Press, for that matter, I hope that comes across.
I grew up when preppy was very much in vogue, and we’re in a little bit of that time again now.
But you’d go into these stores, and there’d be the ad. I remember seeing one; I’m not going to say what brand, but it was like a rowing boat, eight guys, eight rowers plus a coxswain in the rowing boat, and they’re all wearing jackets and ties. And they’re all blonde-haired, blue-eyed, square-jawed, white guys in the boat.
And I come from the sport of rowing. I was on the national team from 2011 to 2016, and I’ve always been interested in menswear. And seeing that kind of picture is just so cringey to me and not cool. I’ve always tried to make our campaign shoots and shows not like that.
C/O Greg Kessler, KesslerStudio
You helped shape some great collaborations at Rowing Blazers. What lessons from those partnerships are influencing how you think about collaborations at J. Press?
At Rowing Blazers and at J. Press, it’s kind of personal.
It’s people and brands and stories that I’m naturally drawn to. I think it’s got to make sense for the brand. It can’t be so far outside of the world that it makes no sense and you can’t really explain it. It’s got to be something that lets both brands put their spin on something that’s a little bit outside the box.
When I always thought about it at Rowing Blazers, it has to be something that lets you kind of paint out the corner a little bit further of the picture of what the world of Rowing Blazers is.
Like, sometimes it’s a watch, and it’s a very expensive watch. Sometimes it’s a sneaker. Sometimes it’s a brand like Target, and sometimes it’s a brand like Gucci. And that’s always kind of the fun for me.
C/O Janice Yim, KesslerStudio
J. Press still makes much of its product domestically. How has the brand been able to maintain that commitment as it has grown?
Man, it’s been crazy. I’ve spent a lot of my time, especially when I first started, visiting factories. I think it was on my second day at J. Press that I went to our tie factory. I’ve told this story before, but it’s maybe worth repeating.
I met this guy there who has been making ties for J. Press for over 50 years. He’s a Holocaust survivor with an amazing story. He came here in the late ’40s as a teenager, and he’s still in there at nine o’clock in the morning, cutting ties. It’s insane, and he’s done very well.
At one point, he started as a kid running errands for a tie store on the Lower East Side. Then he learned how to make them. At a certain point, he bought the building where the tie factory was, which now has not only the tie factory but also corporate offices. And it’s also amazing that he’s still in there cutting ties every day.
I started off visiting a lot of the domestic factories. Shirts, tailored clothing, ties, of course, and rugby shirts. Earlier this summer, I was in Scotland and England, and way up in Shetland, which is in the middle of the North Sea, closer to Norway than to Scotland, to visit our factories there, where we make the Shaggy Dog sweater, which was very special.
I had never been to Shetland before, but it’s an amazing place. It’s like ten sheep for every person. And not many brands, by the way; there are a lot of brands that make Shetland sweaters. Almost none are made in Shetland using Shetland wool. The J. Press Shaggy Dog sweater is actually made in Shetland, using Shetland wool.
I think people vaguely might have a sense of this, but I’m sure they don’t really know the J. Press Shaggy Dog sweater is not just a Shetland sweater, but it’s also brushed in a very special way that is proprietary to J. Press.
And I met this guy named Ian, who brushes every J. Press Shaggy Dog sweater, and his grandfather also brushed all the Shaggy Dog sweaters for J. Press. And there’s a picture of Ian’s grandfather standing there in the factory with the brushes and whatnot, standing next to Prince Philip.
This is a crazy thing that nobody really knows. But when I knew they were brushed, I pictured it as someone with a brush in their hands and whatever. It’s not even a brush. It’s something called teasels.
Teasels are a type of plant that has a stalk and a spiny head with all these curved barbs on it. But J. Press Shaggy Dog sweaters are brushed not with metal brushes or plastic brushes, but with teasels.
C/O J. Press
What can you tell us about the Fall/Winter '26 collection? Is there anything you're especially excited for people to see?
There’s a lot that I’m excited about. I think this season is more focused on tailored clothing, and maybe to some extent, it’s a little bit more grown-up.
J. Press started on campus by dressing Yale students, and I think that aspect of Ivy style is what the past few seasons have been about. I think this season emphasizes the more dressed-up aspects of the brand, like American tailoring, suits in particular, but also tweeds.
We work with these amazing historic mills in England and Scotland, and you see a lot of tweed—a lot of English and Scottish country aesthetic in the collection.
The other big thing is we’re launching women’s. It’s nothing outside the box, but we certainly have had the demand. I think even before I joined J. Press, there was demand for J. Press to offer women’s oxford shirts and women’s Shaggy Dog and women’s tweed sport coats, and navy blazers. And it’s like, yeah, we should.
Fran Lebowitz, for example, has been a J. Press customer for a long time. This is in the New York Times in 1997, but it’s like Fran Lebowitz owns like 4,000 Shaggy Dog sweaters. The article is called “Et Tu, Ecru?” But J. Press offered women’s in the ’50s and ’60s, so it’s not like something entirely that the brand has never done before, but it’s the first time in a very long time.
C/O Tom Concordia, KesslerStudio