J.Crew's Mickey Drexler Offers Mea Culpa on ‘Lousy Year’ in Women's Clothing

J.Crew failed at women's fashion last year, the company's chief executive admitted on Wednesday. CEO Mickey Drexler provided a candid assessment of what he described as a "lousy year" for J.Crew's women's business in a rare appearance on a conference call with analysts, after overall sales at the brand remained stagnant at around $621 million. "Fashion is guaranteed never to always be right," said Drexler, a veteran retail merchant famed for steering apparel giant Gap through its rise in the 1990s. "That's the only guarantee in my many years of doing this."