Kevin McLaughlin was studying business at NYU and working part-time at an Upper East Side boutique, while also helping his brother Jay renovate old Brooklyn brownstones, when the two pooled their money and opened a clothing store on Third Avenue in 1977. They traded first as Sea Island Clothiers before adopting the J. McLaughlin name in 1979, selling menswear until women customers started asking for the same look and the range expanded to include them. The company has grown to roughly 170 stores since, each one built around the same small-neighborhood-shop feel as that first Manhattan storefront.