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Crossing borders: lessons from Jack & Jones on entering new markets

From product curation to cultural fit, how the Danish retailer is building relevance across the Atlantic.

by Erin McCarthy, Vice President and Head of Retail Development

Jack & Jones has been a household name in Europe for more than thirty years. With over 4,000 stores worldwide, this Denmark-based brand has built its reputation on accessible menswear and denim. Since its founding in 1990, Jack & Jones has evolved into a complete lifestyle offering which includes a prominent women’s brand, JJXX. This expanded brand identity helped extend the fashion company to a broader audience and strengthen its global reach.

Today both brands, Jack & Jones and JJXX, have launched their physical retail presence in the United States, with dedicated standalone locations at GGP centers to help establish the brands' early footprints in the market. This is a significant milestone for the European fashion staples. “The U.S. has always been an important and influential market for fashion. We can’t wait to meet the U.S. consumers and share what Jack & Jones is all about — great denim, on-trend fashion, and prices that make it easy to keep your style fresh,” shared Anders Gam, brand director of Jack & Jones, ahead of the company’s first wave of U.S. store openings.

The first American location opened in November 2025 at The Mall in Columbia in Maryland, followed by Natick Mall in Massachusetts, Staten Island Mall in New York, and Christiana Mall in Delaware, which opened in the spring of 2026. This strategic partnership with GGP shopping centers played a key role in the well-established menswear brand’s entry into the U.S. market. Jack & Jones’ strategy is focused on establishing a strong presence in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions before expanding in the South and the West. GGP helped the brand scale appropriately and consciously upon arrival to the States. In addition to the brand’s own marketing efforts, Jack & Jones leveraged GGP’s in-mall advertising and customer engagement platforms to introduce the brand to shoppers and build awareness around its store openings.

For international brands with strong recognition abroad, expanding into the U.S. involves more than finding space in a new country. It requires adapting brand identity for a different customer base, curating assortments that resonate locally, and choosing real estate that builds both visibility and credibility. Jack & Jones’ U.S. debut demonstrates how to navigate this process with care while staying true to what makes the brand distinct.

Assortment with local relevance

In Europe, Jack & Jones offers a wide range of categories including denim, casual wear, tailoring, footwear, and accessories. For the U.S. debut, the brand started with a more focused assortment designed for an American audience that may be discovering Jack & Jones for the first time. Gam explains that this decision came after years of market research and visits to key U.S. retail hubs, “The team identified denim and casual wear as strong entry points. The focus remains on delivering adaptable, trend-right fashion grounded in craftsmanship and quality — values that resonate across markets for both Jack & Jones and JJXX.”

This thoughtful edit allows the brand to clearly showcase its core strengths in fit, denim craftsmanship, and an approachable, everyday style, while also setting a strong foundation for future expansion across both its men’s and women’s lines. Jack & Jones’ approach demonstrates how a focused, well-defined entry point can build familiarity and trust in a new market. At the same time, it leaves intentional space for the brand to evolve and broaden its expression as awareness grows, and consumer connection deepens over time.

Where you open tells a story

The choice of where to open a brick-and-mortar store first can reveal as much about a brand’s intent as its product or design decisions. Jack & Jones’ decision to launch in GGP shopping centers across established suburban and regional markets reflects a clear plan to build awareness in places that balance visibility and stability. This strategy comes into sharper focus through Gam’s explanation: “These locations provide a vibrant retail environment and the right audience for a brand entering the market. The combination of foot traffic, complementary brands, and modern retail experiences made GGP centers the ideal partners for Jack & Jones’ U.S. debut.”

By choosing established retail centers such as The Mall in Columbia, Natick Mall, Staten Island Mall, and Christiana Mall, the brand is deliberately positioning itself within high-traffic destinations that attract both loyal local shoppers and regional visitors. The result is a carefully measured, strategically paced market entry that enables clear performance tracking across locations, while also laying the foundation for sustained visibility, optimization, and long-term growth potential.

Cultural adjustments

Another hurdle that Jack & Jones faced is the simple fact that American shoppers engage with fashion differently than European customers. From fit preferences to shopping frequency and promotional timing, the U.S. fashion industry operates differently than in Denmark and even across Europe. This meant adjusting visual merchandising, store layout, and marketing tone was vital for the brand as these changes could mean the difference between simply getting noticed and being truly understood by customers.

To position the brands for American audiences, Jack & Jones and JJXX will keep the global store concept consistent to create a familiar, engaging brand experience while also welcoming new customers. For Gam, maintaining that authenticity is central to the brands’ U.S. introduction: “We are opening two multi-brand and one single-brand store in GGP centers, with our new concept — the same concept used across our global markets. We are well aware that we’re an unknown brand to most American consumers, but we stay true to who we are and our DNA. Therefore, we focus on our denim heritage and do our best to tell the public that we are a denim brand for men and women.”

Jack & Jones’ ability to adapt thoughtfully while preserving its core denim-first identity will play a defining role in how the brand resonates with U.S. shoppers over time. The process is ultimately one of careful calibration rather than reinvention — translating brand values in ways that feel natural, intuitive, and culturally attuned to a new audience. It requires striking a balance between evolution and continuity, all the while keeping the brand's foundation and heritage intact.

Defining success beyond the first store

While The Mall in Columbia may serve as its first U.S. location, Jack & Jones will measure success across all its early openings. The team will focus on how each store performs, how quickly awareness builds, and how customers respond to both product and price point. For Gam, success for Jack & Jones and JJXX goes beyond sales figures alone. He states, “Performance indicators include both hard skills, KPIs, and soft skills, feedback from consumers and staff. A successful launch means reaching our KPIs and building a positive brand awareness in the U.S. We’ve already seen strong interest in our brand, including a positive response in job applications and local engagement.”

In its next phase, the brand plans to build on early momentum across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic before expanding to the South and the West. This regional approach allows Jack & Jones to strengthen its understanding of core markets, refine operations, and grow customer familiarity in stages. All this happens while also building awareness, earning trust, and becoming a go-to brand for denim and fashion-conscious shoppers across the country.

This steady, phased expansion supported by GGP presents a strong base for long-term success. Each store contributes insights that help guide the next, creating a rhythm of growth supported by real performance data and customer feedback.

Jack & Jones’ U.S. expansion underscores that even the most established global brands must evolve when entering new markets. The path forward is simple yet powerful: begin with a clear identity, adapt with intention, and measure success across a full journey rather than a single storefront.

For a brand with decades of international experience, Jack & Jones is treating the U.S. not only as a new market but as an opportunity to learn and grow. That same mindset applies to all brands in expansion mode. The strongest ones stay curious, evolve with their customers, and view each new chapter as a chance to deepen who they are to better understand what’s next.

Last updated: August 8, 2026