Established in the 1950s, Ann Taylor has long been a go-to fashion brand for working women who want to look put-together and sharp without spending beaucoup bucks on designer clothing. But somewhere along the way, Ann Taylor was deemed uncool, and the brand’s popularity and status seemed to decline in the public eye. Its parent company, Ascena, filed for bankruptcy in 2020, and while Ann Taylor (and other related entities) was left intact, it certainly didn’t help matters.
An informal polling of HuffPost editors shows that Ann Taylor was still fairly prominent in the early aughts, largely considered a go-to for aspiring professional women just entering the workforce. However, in the years since, it has pretty much fallen off everyone’s radar.
HuffPost senior editor Erin Evans said, “I went to Ann Taylor Loft when I graduated college [in 2008]. My mom bought me a suit from there and I wore it to my first big girl job.”
Senior reporter Carly Ledbetter added that as a young person in the early 2000s, “It felt very much like what my idea of what a ‘professional woman’ wore. I used to think, one day when I’m at my corporate job, I’m going to wear Ann Taylor and J.Crew.”
Other colleagues chimed in about the brand’s fall out of favor, with one saying that she was “confused who it was for in 2020,” and another going so far as to call it a “dorky mom shop.”
