Striking that balance had been Ms. Lyons’s skill, but that skill is both more widespread and also less essential now. What we want from fashion is more varied than it was a decade ago. This iteration of J. Crew was perfect for the first wave of internet-driven fashion interest, when being slightly smarter and more modern than the other centrist brands was enough. But it is no longer sufficient. Once the internet made it easier to see more, to learn more, and to buy more widely, J. Crew began to feel fusty. It was too slow-moving for those who were paying close attention, and a little too rich for those who do indeed look for no-brainers.

Which brings me back to the piles. At Rockefeller Center and Columbus Circle, there were pants and shirts piled inches high, the retail equivalent of a shrug. Piles, especially ones where several different colors or patterns are mixed together, communicate indifference, and also the low value of any one individual item. If it can be hidden in a pile, it most likely has little to offer.

One of J. Crew’s solutions to that problem, at least with men’s clothing, has been to create stand-alone locations that give the clothes a little more space to breathe. Two are in TriBeCa: the Ludlow Shop, which focuses on suiting, and the Liquor Store, which when it opened in 2008 felt radical for its reconstruction of the men’s shopping space into something more folksy yet still nouveau riche.