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By Andrew Glazer
Copyright January 27, 2000 The Costa Mesa Daily Planet

FASHION ISLAND -- Brooks Brothers, the very embodiment of Newport Beach's understated, upscale and conservative style, closed its doors here Wednesday. 

After 20 years of business at the Newport Beach site, store officials from the nation's well-known purveyor of blue blazers and Oxford shirts decided not to renew their lease in the tony mall.

"The building here just isn't offering what our customers want," said Missy Evans, store manager. "It's really outdated.' 

Nina Robinson, director of sales and marketing for Fashion Island, said there's nothing wrong with the building. 

"They've changed their overall retail concept," she said. "Their new concept is smaller stores." 

Robinson said the mall is still negotiating a new lease with Brooks Brothers. 

However, Evans said Brooks Brothers brass will close the Fashion Island store, despite the fact it's the most profitable West Coast branch. 

Narrow glass doors open into the store, contrasting with the wide glass windows of other stores in the shopping center. The facade is hard and concrete -- a monument to the no-nonsense style of the clothing offered inside. 

"It's a very preppy American style," said Gina Pia Cooper, a fashion expert and editor of the New York-based Fashion Finds online magazine. "I don't want to say Yale, but it has a very Anglo-Saxon, Protestant look. And they have a very knowledgeable staff." 

That's precisely what has drawn Pat Mitchell of San Clemente to the store since it opened in 1980. 

He snatched a few final pairs of Oxford boxer shorts Wednesday afternoon in the store's final hours. He asked Miles Wood, who has been his salesman for 18 years, whether they would fit. 

"I'll be very sad when it's closed," said Mitchell, who was clad in a gray blazer, black slacks and blue tie -- all from Brooks Brothers. 

Mitchell said he'll start ordering clothes from the Brooks Brothers catalogue. But he said it wouldn’t be the same without Wood’s advice.

Shoppers who want attention from knowledgeable Brooks Brothers staffers, such as Wood, will need to put a few extra miles on their BMWs. The closest stores are in Los Angeles, where there are three, and San Diego, where there is one.

Geri Corrigan, a spokeswoman from Brooks Brothers headquarters in New York, said the company would search for a suitable Orange County location.

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