J.Crew Founder Dies

The founder of J.Crew (New York), Arthur Cinader, died last week at 90 years old. His death in Santa Fe, N.M., has been attributed to complications from a fall.

Cinader launched the company in an effort to capitalize on the success of catalog businesses like L. L. Bean (Freeport, Maine) and Lands’ End (Dodgeville, Wis.), according to The New York Times. J.Crew’s first catalog was published in 1983. By the late 1980s, the company opened its first standalone bricks-and-mortar retail store in New York and others soon followed. A decade later, Cinader retired from the company that he had founded.

He is survived by his wife, four daughters, one son and 13 grandchildren.