Peck & Peck

Peck & Peck was a New York-based retailer of private label women's wear prominent on Fifth Avenue. [ [http://strweb1-12.websys.aol.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920132,00.html TIME article detailing retail stores that have failed on Fifth Avenue] ] Founded by Edgar Wallace Peck and his brother George H. Peck [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9906E5D71638F930A35756C0A967948260 NYT Wedding Notice of Dorothy Peck, granddaughter of founder] ] , it began in New York in 1888 [ [http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=tess&state=n3eko1.1.1 Search on Peck & Peck Trademark Registration] ] as a hosiery store, with early location near Madison Square. [ [http://www.thecityreview.com/bookfif.html Essay titled Fifth Avenue - The Best Address by Jerry E. Patterson] ] At Edgar Peck's death, "Time" magazine reported that the brothers once had to pay rent every 24 hours to a distrusting landlord, ["Milestones", "Time", November 5, 1928] but now had 19 stores. [ [http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,723554-2,00.html Milestones Time magazine column noting Edgar Peck's 1928 death] ] 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. [ [http://www.slphistory.org/history/salkinlinoff.asp St. Louis Park Historical Society - Salkin and Linoff ] ] 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 [ [http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/1114_reg.html Book review on "In The Place To Be" by Guy Trebay] . ISBN 1-56639-208-X] when WASP fashion ruled stores and fashion magazines. [ [http://www.gadflyonline.com/archive/August98/archive-lindamccartney.html Gadfly Online article detailing Peck & Peck's devotion to White Anglo-Saxon Protestants] ] 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. [ [http://www.ranablog.com/pdfs/didion.pdf Essay titled "On Keeping a Notebook" by Joan Didion] ] Some say that Hillary Clinton has a Peck & Peck look. [ [http://www.jewishworldreview.com/sam/schulman072199.asp Jewish World Review article titled "Hillary's Faithless" by Sam Schulman] ] 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.

Links

* [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3092/is_n19_v29/ai_9006346 1990 Article on H.C. Prange Ownership]
* [http://www.slphistory.org/history/salkinlinoff.asp Salkin & Linoff Bankruptcy, History]
* [http://www.baesel.net/57peck3.htm Joint promotion with Capital Airlines]
* [http://www.baesel.net/peck.htm Second Capital Airlines Joint Advertising Promotion]
* [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5149667 Jim Peck, Lead Freedom Rider]

References