The Please Don’t Destroy Boys Are J.Crew Models Now

The fashion industry has been in a playful mood. Sly slogan tees are back on the menu. Pants are getting so saucily low-rise, they reveal a whiff of butt crack. And a cohort of very funny people—including Ivy Wolk, Benito Skinner, and Cole Escola—have become maison darlings. It was only a matter of time before the beloved comedy trio Please Don’t Destroy landed a big-time campaign—and thanks to the good people at J.Crew, that day has finally come.

After meeting at NYU, John Higgins, Ben Marshall, and Martin Herlihy shot to viral fame through a series of pandemic-era TikTok sketches. Not long after, they landed at Saturday Night Live in 2021, injecting the show with a caustic new energy through their surrealist pre-taped bits—many of which starred A-listers like Bad Bunny, Charli XCX, and Timothée Chalamet. Though Higgins and Herlihy have now both left SNL, Please Don’t Destroy remains a going concern—the three spent the back half of the summer touring their live show, before reuniting again for J.Crew’s cameras.

On a steamy Friday last month, Higgins, Marshall, and Herlihy took to the streets of New York in the prep brand’s sharpest fall suits. I stopped by the NoLIta set as Herlihy directed a typically silly, fast-paced video, with the trio running through bit after bit—a James Bond impression one minute, smashing into a display of mannequins the next.

Here, I caught up with the boys about their burgeoning modeling careers, all-time style icons, and the unlikely inspiration behind the new campaign.

GQ: How did this campaign come together?

Martin Herlihy: It was J.Crew’s idea. They asked if we had any experience or personal knowledge of J.Crew, and we told them that John would go down to J.Crew pretty much every Saturday at SNL and buy something.

John Higgins: I call it retail therapy. Well, I don’t call it that. I think the world calls it that, but I would go there.

Herlihy: That 30 Rock J.Crew was kind of just like a dopamine provider.

Higgins: If you were just bummed about your sketch not going or anything, just getting a new J.Crew sweater just really seemed to spin it up.

In the campaign, it’s your first day as J.Crew employees. Have any of you worked retail?

Higgins: No.

Marshall: Is an ice cream store retail? Because Martin did that.

How about in a mall? Have any of you ever worked in a mall?

Marshall: No. I got rejected from working at a popsicle stand once. It was the day that my friend, Moss [Perricone]—who now writes for SNL and was my roommate—got his first TV writing job. And I was denied from the popsicle stand.

I was on set for a little bit of the filming and I saw that you guys improvised some of it, but I’m assuming that there was also a plan in place. What was the process?

Higgins: It was easy because the lack of experience guided a lot of the comedy of it, where we kind of were just fucking up over and over again.

Marshall: It was theoretically our first day working there. We wrote the script with our buddy, Brady Lees, and approached it like we would have an SNL sketch—fun and fast. We used a similar format of talking about something like it went really well and then cutting to it not going really well.

Higgins: Don’t give away the secret, dude.

Marshall: We just pulled from our real experience of being dumb guys.

You guys also modeled.

Higgins: That we were born to do, I would say.

Herlihy: It was really strange and uncomfortable... That makes it sound like it was a bad experience and it wasn’t. It was great. Everyone who worked on it was great. Doing it was very strange and uncomfortable, but it was great.

Marshall: You can expect to see us just rising the ranks of the model world, walking in Fashion Week. GQ’s fucking like, “Oh, it’s all about Jack Innanen.” No, it’s not. It’s about Please Don’t Destroy. Look out for us. We’re dressing cool. Everything’s changing.

I know there was a much-contested couch photo.

Herlihy: What was contested about that?

Marshall: I was fucking pissed because it was the coolest picture and it was just you two on a couch clearly big enough for three people. I was boxed out of it for some reason. They literally had me wait in the van. It’s not even like I was doing something else.

Herlihy: I don’t know if I can announce this because it’s pretty far out, but I am doing a runway event for next year’s fashion week. I’m actually walking for Nathan’s Hot Dogs, which is exciting.

Amazing.

Higgins: I’ll be there for Zyn, which is really cool.

Marshall: That’s awesome guys. I’m doing Powerade this year.

Higgins: Yeah, I heard, dude. Congrats, man.

That’s a full meal.

Higgins: That’s a full meal, you’re right. That’s a total meal.

Herlihy: That’s girl dinner.

You guys aren’t working together in the same capacity anymore, now that John and Martin have both left SNL. How did it feel to reunite here?

Higgins: I miss my boys, but it was fun getting back together and it feeling like we had just done this the other week or something. It was kind of just easy to jump right back in.

Marshall: We also, in many ways, had just done it the other week, because we were still touring together all summer and spending a lot of time with each other, which was fun. Now I’m feeling like I really miss you guys, because you guys have been all over the world.

Higgins: I’m in Vancouver right now.

What are you doing in Vancouver?

Higgins: Shooting the rest of Scrubs season two.

Martin, have you also been all over the world?

Herlihy: Yeah, but that’s just because I’m evading law enforcement. You’ll hear about it soon. I don’t know how much of this I’m allowed to talk about. Interpol is up my ass. No, it feels like it’s the same as it always was working together, except the only difference is now we’re not banging our heads on Tuesday at 4 in the morning. We’re doing it at J.Crew at 4 in the evening.

Martin, you were the director on this. This project still feels like a Please Don’t Destroy production, but it also does the job of a fashion campaign. What was your approach to combining those two things?

Herlihy: It was pretty similar. Definitely it being a fashion thing felt like we had a little more liberty to take swings with the look. J.Crew had referenced JFK Jr. Me and the DP, Andy Kugler, referenced The Apprentice, the movie. But it was the same as it always is. Like SNL, we were in a rush because the photos went long, but it was awesome.

Marshall: To give Martin a compliment, I think that you did a really good job of making it feel like a more elevated, stylized version of what we normally do. I think it looks artful and cool, while not being too serious.

Herlihy: Thank you, Ben. That’s very, very sweet.

Higgins: I was going to say the exact opposite. No, I love it. I totally agree with that compliment, so we’ll split that compliment.

Marshall: Double compliment?

Higgins: A double compliment, but also shout out to the music underneath.

Marshall: Martin, you wrote and recorded that all yourself.

Herlihy: I taught myself how to play every instrument in a jazz quartet and that’s how I did that.

You mentioned JFK Jr.—

Marshall: No, no, RFK.

Higgins: RFK Jr.

This year was a huge year for guys wanting to dress like JFK Jr. Do you guys have any personal style icons?

Herlihy: I’m walking around in jeans and no shirt most days.

Marshall: Fucking sunburned to hell.

Herlihy: Yeah.

Marshall: Style icons. John, who would you say yours is? I feel like yours is like a middle school literature teacher maybe.

Higgins: Cartman.

Marshall: Cartman? From South Park?

Higgins: I’ll just kind of geek out on a brand for a long time. Recently, I’ve been wearing a lot from this place called 33mm. I started wearing their shirts. A style icon? Flava Flav, I guess. Shirts by 33mm, big clock on my chest by Flava Flav.

Any style icons for you, Martin?

Herlihy: It’s hard to beat Flava Flav. Buzz Lightyear?

Buzz Lightyear’s pretty good.

Herlihy: I wear shirts that I’ve had since I was a child.

Higgins: You do have a lot of Mets shirts that look really cool from when you were a kid.

Marshall: Do you think that we have a future in the fashion industry?

You’re already in the fashion industry.

Higgins: Whoa. We are the fashion industry.