Peck & Peck facts for kids

Peck & Peck was a New York-based retailer of private label women's wear prominently located at 581 Fifth Avenue.

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 when WASP fashion ruled stores and fashion magazines.

To writers like Joan Didion, Peck & Peck was descriptor and shorthand for a certain fashion look. A store classic was the simple A-line dress.

History

Founded by Edgar Wallace Peck and his brother George H. Peck, it began in New York in 1888 as a hosiery store, with an early location near Madison Square. At Edgar Peck's death, Time magazine reported that the brothers once had to pay rent every 24 hours to a distrusting landlord, but now had 19 stores. It grew to 78 stores across the United States.

Peck & Peck filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1974 and was purchased in 1976 by the Minneapolis-based retailing company Salkin & Linoff. Through a combination of poor management and widely decentralized locations, the chain was basically shut down and sold off in pieces. 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. Salkin & Linoff closed their last five stores in January 1991, and the assets were sold at a bankruptcy sale.

Other fashion retailers that grew in the wake of the closure of Peck & Peck were Ann Taylor and Talbots. Since 2008, the Peck & Peck trademark is owned by Stein Mart for its line of woman's clothing.