Peck & Peck was a New York-based retailer of private label women's wear prominent on Fifth Avenue.^[1] Founded by Edgar Wallace Peck and his brother George H. Peck^[2], it began in New York in 1888^[3] as a hosiery store, with early location near Madison Square.^[4] At Edgar Peck's death, Time magazine reported that the brothers once had to pay rent every 24 hours to a distrusting landlord,^[5] but now had 19 stores. ^[6] 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.^[7] Some specific store locations of the chain were sold by Salkin & Linoff in the mid/late 1980s to H.C. Prange Co. of Sheboygan, Wisconsin (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^[8] when WASP fashion ruled stores and fashion magazines.^[9] 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.^[10] Some say that Hillary Clinton has a Peck & Peck look.^[11] 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

• 1990 Article on H.C. Prange Ownership
• Salkin & Linoff Bankruptcy, History
• Joint promotion with Capital Airlines
• Second Capital Airlines Joint Advertising Promotion
• Jim Peck, Lead Freedom Rider

References