"There's a heritage to it, a real appreciation for the past and for real things," he said. He sees this in its design aesthetic, but only in a thematic, rather than specific, way: "Not too trendy, not too fast fashion." Trendy, to Sikhounmuong, means "colors are very bright, patterns are really crazy." Madewell is certainly not that; it runs to jeans, boyish button-down shirts, A-line dresses, that kind of thing. Nothing is neon, hardly anything has visible logos or words or pictures, and where there are patterns, they are classics: stripes or polka dots or plaid. To Sikhounmuong, these elements are outside of trends; they are the standards.

"I don’t want this stuff to be disposable,” he said. “I want this piece to be relevant five years from now, that you can still pull it out of your closet." Part of that intended timelessness, reflected from the name and logo, appears in the price of the clothing.

A lot of the products and shops that have come out of the capitalist embrace of authenticity and vintage are silly and fake, but the thing is, if you're really going to ape a cultural movement, you have to go all in. Part of the cultural change that spawned Madewell is that being older and more honest and taking the time and making a better product is, well, better. There is much to be scornful of in this world of Mason-jar salads and twirly mustaches, but a major, and admirable, tenet of this specific modern twist on consumer culture is the idea that it is better to do things the right way. It is better to make fewer things than more things, because you can concentrate on those fewer things. This is why Americans of a certain age and class are more impressed by a pizza place that serves nothing but margherita pizza than by Domino's, which sells a million combinations of cheese and sauce and bread and meat and will deliver to your door in 30 minutes or less.

This is not exactly what Madewell is doing, of course, but it is certainly what it is attempting to appear to do. Any veneer of authenticity or oldness is necessarily diffused, not specific, but we’re OK with that, in part because we like the aesthetic and in part because the stuff really is pretty high quality.

Most of my interview with Sikhounmuong, which was conducted in a conference room accompanied by two public relations people, was friendly. But eventually I had to ask: Didn’t he think it was, somehow and in some way, wrong to insinuate that Madewell today has any connection to my family's company? Wasn’t that misleading and just a little bit gross? Sikhounmuong hesitated and looked to the PR person sitting next to him. This wasn't really his game: He doesn’t craft slogans; he designs clothes. Eventually he said, "I think it's an aspirational slogan. It says we know this name is a great name and we know this brand is a great brand. That's what I take from it."

That's not what I take from it. What I've taken from it is that my family's company probably gave even less of a shit than Madewell does about quality and design and passion. Its clothes were as high quality as they could afford because it was in their best interest to make clothes people were satisfied with. They manufactured in the U.S. because at the time it was cheaper to do so, and because it was easier. They weren't noble; companies back then didn’t construct a facade of nobility and purpose. This was a company founded by a Russian immigrant who was probably an identity thief, a company that regularly stole the intellectual property of competitors if it thought it would sell. Both of the companies named Madewell adhere to the way things were done in their respective times. We look at the past through glasses that bring into focus only what we want, and need, to see; they distort everything else.

My great-uncle Aaron didn't recognize anything on the Madewell website. And I think he would probably look at the exposed brick in a Madewell store and wonder why they didn't finish putting up the walls. If Julius were alive, I think he’d be very impressed that a company called Madewell posted revenue of over $180 million in the fiscal year 2013. He would care not at all about whether it was authentic, or what the word “authentic” even means.