J. Crew is coming off a hot first quarter, the latest it has reported, which ended on April 30. During that period, the company posted a year-over-year same-store sales jump of 37%, and revenues soared 45%, to $211 million. The company's operating income was $23 million, up from a loss of $3 million in the first quarter of 2004.

J. Crew officials say the company's turnaround, in part, is because of the 2003 hiring of chairman and CEO Millard Drexler, former president and CEO of Gap Inc. When he took over the company's annual sales were falling.

Though executives have high hopes for the IPO, they do admit some possible pitfalls in the SEC filing. Strong competition in the difficulty of finding good sites, the reliance on high mall traffic are all listed as risk factors as well as strong competition in the specialty retail industry. "Many of our competitors are, and many of our potential competitors may be, larger and have greater financial, marketing and other resources and therefore may be able to adapt to changes in customer requirements more quickly, devote greater resources to the marketing and sale of their products, generate greater national brand recognition or adopt more aggressive pricing policies than we can," the filing says. "As a result, we may not be able to compete successfully with them."