Most fashion brands hire comedians to stand still in nice clothes and smirk. J.Crew went one better and handed the camera to the comedians. “We Take Suiting Seriously” is a 1:46 comedy short starring Please Don’t Destroy, the trio of Ben Marshall, John Higgins and Martin Herlihy, directed by Herlihy and written by the three of them with Brady Lees. It is the funniest fashion spot of the fall so far. It is also proof that when you give a sketch group the keys, you get a sketch first and a suit ad second.
WHAT HAPPENS ON SCREEN
The premise fits in one line: three guys report for their first shift at the J.Crew Suit Shop on Bond Street in New York and immediately prove they should not be trusted with a tape measure. The film opens on a smug “First day working at J.Crew, done. Killed it,” before a single customer has been helped, and then it never lets up.
Customers walk in looking for a work suit and get a barrage of the wrong questions. A measuring scene drifts so far from inseams that the shopper has to remind his salesman what the suit is for. One of the trio offers “six-pack tips” and gets roasted about eating macaroni and cheese every day. Another asks a co-worker for the time, hears that it is 11, and announces a nap. A tailoring request for “one size smaller” is met with “Did you want to look like the penguin?” Through all of it, a manager in a navy blazer keeps arriving a few seconds too late to stop anything.
Somewhere in the chaos the actual job gets done. Three customers line up in the Kenmare, the Ludlow and the Crosby, the brand’s relaxed, slim and classic fits, and they look sharp. Then the trio tries to close the store before noon for salsa class, Ben Marshall disappears into the tuxedo rack and comes out as James Bond, and the closing beat asks whether now is a bad time to discuss compensation.
CREDITS
Brand: J.Crew. Film: “We Take Suiting Seriously with Please Don’t Destroy,” 1:46, uploaded to J.Crew’s official YouTube channel on October 20, 2026. Director: Martin Herlihy. Writers: Martin Herlihy, Ben Marshall, John Higgins and Brady Lees. Cast: Martin Herlihy, Ben Marshall and John Higgins, featuring Jamie Linn Watson, Angel Aguilar, Khiry Walker and Eric Newland. Campaign stills: Luke Gilford. Location: J.Crew’s 19 Bond Street store, New York. No outside advertising agency or production company is credited in J.Crew’s announcement. Credits per the YouTube description and J.Crew’s press release.
THE EXECUTION
This is a Please Don’t Destroy video with a J.Crew logo on the end, and that is the point. The rhythm is pure sketch: short scenes, hard cuts, jokes that land on a reaction shot instead of a punchline, and a willingness to let a bit get weird and then cut away before it gets weirder. Herlihy shoots it handheld in a warm, wood-panelled store that actually looks like a nice place to buy a suit, which keeps the product looking good even while the people selling it fall apart.
The supporting cast deserves credit too. The customers and the exasperated manager play it completely straight, and that gives the trio something to bounce off. Without them, the film would just be three friends doing bits in a store. With them, it becomes a workplace comedy with a dress code.
WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T
What works: the casting is smart for a brand that wants to sell a first suit to men who would rather not think about buying one. Please Don’t Destroy built its audience on being slightly hopeless young guys, and putting them in charge of tailoring turns J.Crew’s competence into the joke’s straight man. “Their qualifications may be debatable. Their suits are not,” as the brand’s own copy puts it, and the film actually delivers that idea. The three fits are named on screen, shown on real bodies and given a laugh, which is more product work than most celebrity fashion films manage.
What doesn’t: the jokes are not equally strong. A couple of the bits lean on crude, half-swallowed lines that play better on SNL at 1 a.m. than in a retail brand film, and a few gags are so quick that the joke is mostly the actors laughing at themselves. The tuxedo and James Bond finale is fun but feels tacked on, a sketch ending in search of a sketch. And for a campaign about taking suits seriously, the film spends very little time on what makes the suits good: the fabrics and the mills J.Crew talks up in its release never appear.
VERDICT
“We Take Suiting Seriously” is a confident, genuinely funny piece of branded comedy that knows exactly who it is for. It trades polish for personality, and the trade mostly pays off: you remember the suits because you remember the idiots selling them. It is uneven and a little too pleased with itself, but in a category full of slow-motion models and moody voiceovers, it feels alive. Rating: 3.5 out of 5.