JIM MAHONEY / DMN

Mickey Drexler and designer Kin Lee attend the North Park Center opening of Madewell, a spinoff of J. Crew.

Growing up in the Bronx, Millard "Mickey" Drexler III worked summers and weekends with his father, a button and piece-goods buyer for a coat manufacturer who taught him the value of something made well.

"I grew up knowing what value was. I never wanted to be taken advantage of," said Mr. Drexler, J. Crew Group's chairman and chief executive.

A few years ago, he purchased the Madewell name – a 1937 New Bedford, Mass. workwear brand defunct for decades – and said he "started dreaming about it."

This week the dream appeared as his newest store – Madewell – which targets a broad age range of women, from mothers to daughters.

"We think it's ageless clothing," said the retail guru, who was in Dallas this week for the store's national introduction at NorthPark Center. "It's comfortable and hip, well-styled and feels washed and worn."

Like J. Crew, more specialty chains are creating new store concepts as Wall Street demands growth in square footage and as shoppers require a constant flow of newness.

"American shoppers are much more sophisticated, and chains can't afford to have one model anymore," said Wendy Liebmann, president of WSL Strategic Retail, a New York marketing and retail consulting firm.

"There's too much sameness in all the malls. The consumer expects new and different, and there's only so much of that you can do with one brand."

Dallas-based Neiman Marcus Group recently opened its new Cusp boutique in Washington, D.C., which is going after a younger audience.

Martin + Osa is a new store from American Eagle Outfitters Inc., and the first location will open at NorthPark in mid-September. The first Texas location of Abercrombie & Fitch Co.'s new Ruehl No. 925 will open at the Dallas Galleria later this fall. And Gap Inc.'s Forth & Towne makes its Texas debut at the Houston Galleria next month.

In addition, manufacturers continue to shape their brands into specialty stores.

Liz Claiborne Inc. has added Juicy Couture and Sigrid Olsen to its store list. And Perry Ellis International Inc. resurrected the Munsingwear label to create a men's and women's apparel store called Penguin, also at NorthPark.

Athletic apparel and footwear chain Finish Line Inc. has now created Paiva (pronounced pie-vah), a women's athletic fashion boutique aimed at upscale shoppers. Last year, it acquired Man Alive, an expanding regional hip-hop apparel chain with 76 stores, including one at Valley View Center in Dallas and another coming next month to Town East Mall in Mesquite.

Paiva general merchandise manager Jeffery N. Pofsky said the new chain has the potential to grow to 200 stores. "We're going after the 25- to 40-year-old active woman who wants a different assortment that can't be found everywhere and wants a specialty-store level of service," he said.

Much industry attention is focused on Madewell because of Mr. Drexler and the people he hired to make it happen.

Mr. Drexler, whose tenure at Gap included brand extensions such as Baby Gap and chains Old Navy and Banana Republic, and Leslie H. Wexner of Limited Brands get credit for showing the industry how to develop new concepts, Ms. Liebmann said.

"This is the model that The Limited was very good at 10 and 15 years ago. They had great real estate, and from The Limited went on with Express, Bath and Body Works, Victoria's Secret, etc.," she said. "It's a planned-obsolescence strategy."

J. Crew operates 164 stores and 45 outlet locations, and Mr. Drexler said he thinks Madewell has the potential to be just as big. The second Madewell store will open next month in Los Angeles' Century City.

Unlike Crewcuts – J. Crew's new children's store that mimics the adult version down to the stripes on the neckties – Madewell is trying to distance itself from the parent chain's identity.

Mr. Drexler brought the Madewell brand with him when he joined J. Crew in 2003. He revitalized the chain with upgraded fabrics and added a bridal line.

He plucked some of the best people in the specialty apparel arena to join him at J. Crew, including former Abercrombie & Fitch clothing designer Kin Lee and most of his former store team at Gap.

Budding designers can peek at how its done. A mock-up of Ms. Lee's inspiration board in her Manhattan office is on one wall of the NorthPark store and will change with the season's merchandise.

Mr. Drexler left Gap in 2002 after 19 years. The chain was struggling to interest teens, and its aging, core baby boomer customers were moving on. At the same time, competition accelerated from lower-price discounters Target and Wal-Mart and department store chains J.C. Penney and Kohl's.

Asked whether price really matters to him, his voice jumps as he moves over to a table of leather jackets. "Yes, price matters. Why do you have to take a mortgage out for a really good leather jacket?"

He doesn't want to name names "because some of these people are my friends," but he believes some boutiques are overpriced: "$95 for a tank top; $4,500 for a leather jacket."

At Madewell, the corresponding prices are $12.50 and $295. Overall, he said, prices are 20 percent to 30 percent lower than at J. Crew.

Madewell designer Ms. Lee said Mr. Drexler was in her office daily for updates.

Only 29 years old, Ms. Lee is designing clothing for her third start-up chain. At Abercrombie & Fitch, she was a lead designer for Hollister and Ruehl No. 925.

"Yes, I think the third time is the charm," she said.

E-mail mhalkias@dallasnews.com