By ALLAN APPEL | New Haven Independent
Back in 1902, Richard Press’s Latvian immigrant grandfather Jacobi knocked on the doors of Yale dorm rooms to sell the students custom-made clothing.
Word spread about the stylish jackets with their unpadded shoulders and snazzy vents.
J. Press was born.
On Thursday afternoon, a mere 120 years of button-down shirts and shaggy dog sweaters later, Press’s relatives and friends gathered with city officials and the clothier’s Japanese owners at 262 Elm St. to celebrate the formal ribbon-cutting of J. Press’s new storefront. The celebration also marked the company’s century-plus-twenty haberdashery presence in New Haven.
The spacious (1,780 square feet) and (of course) classy threads emporium has been open since May right around the corner from the previous home store on York Street, which was severely damaged by winter storms in 2013.
Despite the woes of the economy, “overall business has been very good,” said Robert Squillaro, J. Press’s chief merchandising and design officer. Perhaps not surprisingly, the recent new trend is that “pre-Covid the online business was 35 percent; now it is 65 percent,” he added.