There was talk on Twitter about it from fashion editors and fashion haters alike. The arrival of J.Crew in London tonight was more than an industry event - it felt like a mini-cultural revolution.

The opening of the brand’s first UK store has been in our diaries for some time. But what was noticeable about it was the fact that people outside the industry – nay, people who don’t even really enjoy shopping – were excited about it too.

Call it the Mobama effect perhaps: the First Lady was the one who first spread word of the store beyond US shores, with her nattily paired staple cardigans worn effortlessly over a Thakoon cocktail dress, or accessorised with a Narciso Rodriguez belt. This is the sort of marketing you just can’t buy; paired with that sort of foreign exoticism that comes of a label being unavailable on your native shores, it adds up to something of a fashion moment.

What J.Crew has pulled off is quite a coup: its method has been to straddle both comfort and cool. The clothes are on-trend without feeling transient (plain and reliable cashmere knits paired with graphic print, neon-accented trousers, for example), and they’re hip without being intimidating. They’re also reassuringly expensive, priced not quite at high street level but equally not with the sort of designer tag that makes people’s skin shrivel up when they come to pay. It’s the perfect all-rounder of a brand.

So much was evident in the excitement around the store opening tonight, which drew attendees from high fashion publications, newspapers and consumer titles alike. Then there were the likes of Daisy Lowe (it’s officially a London party then) and the reassuringly chic and sensible presence of the brand's down-to-earth founder Jenna Lyons.

With two floors of trends, accessories, staples and menswear, connected by a staircase flown with artsy décor and a wood panelled walkway, you’d be hard pressed to find fault. That, plus knowingly twee renderings of London institutions (mannequins wear raffia bearskins, and crowd around a mocked-up telephone booth), means it's difficult not to feel a shopping-y sort of thrill of the new, whether you’re part of the cognoscenti or not.

It’s a friendly sort of high fashion, New York experience, now available on the high street. And it might just shock extant and more stolid brands into upping their game. Who wouldn’t be bowled over by that?