Brooks Brothers was steps from the World Trade Center on 9/11. Its creative director still can't look at the pictures.

Brooks Brothers creative director Michael Bastian spoke with Business Insider about the 25th anniversary of 9/11.

JP Yim/Getty Images for Delivering Good ; Peter Turnley/Getty Images It has been 25 years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

A Brooks Brothers store near Ground Zero served as a morgue in the aftermath of the attacks.

Creative director Michael Bastian told Business Insider he "still can't look at the pictures" from that day.

Like many people, Brooks Brothers creative director Michael Bastian remembers exactly where he was on the morning of September 11, 2001 .

"9/11 is personal for me," he told Business Insider during New York Fashion Week on Thursday as Brooks Brothers presented its Spring/Summer 2027 collection.

"I was in the air on 9/11.

I was flying back from a trade show in Paris.

I was working at Bergdorf Goodman at the time.

And I ended up in Nova Scotia in Halifax, Canada." After hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a full national ground stop, shutting US airspace for the first time in history.

It took Bastian four days to get back home to a New York City that was no longer recognizable.

A Brooks Brothers store near the World Trade Center sustained heavy damage on September 11, 2001.

Peter Turnley/Getty Images "It really changed everyone's life," Bastian, who joined Brooks Brothers as creative director in 2020, said.

Brooks Brothers, a 208-year-old menswear brand founded by Henry Sands Brooks in New York City, is also part of the history of that terrible day and the recovery efforts that followed.