Summary of Significant Accounting Policies (Policies)	3 Months Ended
Summary of Significant Accounting Policies (Policies)	May 05, 2018
Accounting Policies [Abstract]
Nature of Operations	Nature of Operations Genesco Inc. and its subsidiaries (collectively, the "Company") business includes the sourcing and design, marketing and distribution of footwear and accessories through retail stores in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Canada primarily under the Journeys, Journeys Kidz, Little Burgundy and Johnston & Murphy banners and under the Schuh banner in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Germany; through catalogs and e-commerce websites including the following: journeys.com, journeyskidz.com, journeys.ca, schuh.co.uk, littleburgundyshoes.com, johnstonmurphy.com and trask.com, and at wholesale, primarily under the Company's Johnston & Murphy brand, the Trask brand, the licensed Dockers brand and other brands that the Company licenses for footwear. The Company's business also includes Lids Sports Group, which operates headwear and accessory stores in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Canada primarily under the Lids banner; the Lids Locker Room and Lids Clubhouse businesses, consisting of sports-oriented fan shops featuring a broad array of licensed merchandise such as apparel, hats and accessories, sports decor and novelty products, operating under various trade names; licensed team merchandise departments in Macy's department stores operated under the name Locker Room by Lidsand on macys.com, under a license agreement with Macy's; certain e-commerce operations including lids.com, lids.ca, lidslockerroom.com and lidsclubhouse.com. Including both the footwear businesses and the Lids Sports Group business, at May 5, 2018, the Company operated 2,680 retail stores and leased departments in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Germany. During the three months ended May 5, 2018 and April 29, 2017, the Company operated five reportable business segments (not including corporate): (i) Journeys Group, comprised of the Journeys, Journeys Kidz and Little Burgundy retail footwear chains, e-commerce and catalog operations; (ii) Schuh Group, comprised of the Schuh retail footwear chain and e-commerce operations; (iii) Lids Sports Group, comprised as described in the preceding paragraph; (iv) Johnston & Murphy Group, comprised of Johnston & Murphy retail operations, e-commerce and catalog operations and wholesale distribution of products under the Johnston & Murphy^®and H.S. Trask^® brands; and (v) Licensed Brands, comprised of Dockers^® Footwear, sourced and marketed under a license from Levi Strauss & Company; G.H. Bass Footwear operated under a Note 1 Summary of Significant Accounting Policies, Continued license from G-III Apparel Group, Ltd., which was terminated in January 2018; and other brands.
Principles of Consolidation	Principles of Consolidation All subsidiaries are consolidated in the Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements. All significant intercompany transactions and accounts have been eliminated.
Financial Statement Reclassifications	Financial Statement Reclassifications Certain reclassifications have been made to conform prior years' data to the current year presentation with respect to fixed assets.
Revenue Recognition	Revenue Recognition On February 4, 2018, the Company adopted Accounting Standards Update 2014-09, “Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606)” ("ASC 606") using the modified retrospective approach for all contracts not completed as of the adoption date. Financial results for reporting periods beginning after February 3, 2018 are presented in accordance with ASC 606, while prior periods will continue to be reported in accordance with the Company's pre-adoption accounting policies and therefore have not been adjusted to conform to ASC 606.
Deferred Gift Card Revenue	The Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets include an accrued liability for gift cards of $8.2 million, $18.1 million and $16.2 million at May 5, 2018, February 3, 2018 and April 29, 2017, Note 1 Summary of Significant Accounting Policies, Continued respectively. Gift card breakage recognized as revenue was $0.3 million for each of the first quarters of Fiscal 2019 and Fiscal 2018. During the three months ended May 5, 2018, the Company recognized $2.8 million of gift card redemptions and gift card breakage revenue that were included in the gift card liability as of February 3, 2018.
Cash and Cash Equivalents	The Company's strategic plan does not require the repatriation of foreign cash in order to fund its operations in the U.S., and it is the Company's current intention to indefinitely reinvest its foreign cash and cash equivalents outside of the U.S. If the Company were to repatriate foreign cash to the U.S., it would be required to accrue and pay U.S. taxes in accordance with applicable U.S. tax rules and regulations as a result of the repatriation. There were no cash equivalents included in cash and cash equivalents at May 5, 2018, February 3, 2018 and April 29, 2017. Cash equivalents are highly-liquid financial instruments having an original maturity of three months or less. At May 5, 2018, substantially all of the Company’s domestic cash was invested in deposit accounts at FDIC-insured banks. The majority of payments due from banks for domestic customer credit card transactions process within 24 - 48 hours and are accordingly classified as cash and cash equivalents in the Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets.
Concentration of Credit Risk and Allowances on Accounts Receivable	Concentration of Credit Risk and Allowances on Accounts Receivable The Company’s footwear wholesale businesses sell primarily to department stores and independent retailers across the United States. Receivables arising from these sales are not collateralized. Customer credit risk is affected by conditions or occurrences within the economy and the retail industry as well as by customer specific factors. In the footwear wholesale businesses, one customer accounted for 15%, one customer accounted for 8% and one customer accounted for 7% of the Company’s total trade receivables balance, while no other customer accounted for more than 6% of the Company’s total trade receivables balance as of May 5, 2018.
Leases	Leases The Company occasionally receives reimbursements from landlords to be used towards construction of a store the Company intends to lease. Leasehold improvements are recorded at their gross costs including items reimbursed by landlords. The reimbursements are amortized as a reduction of rent expense over the initial lease term.
Fair Value of Financial Instruments	Debt fair values were estimated using a discounted cash flow analysis based on current market interest rates for similar types of financial instruments and would be classified in Level 2 as defined in Note 5. Carrying amounts reported on the Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets for cash, cash equivalents, receivables and accounts payable approximate fair value due to the short-term maturity of these instruments.
Selling and Administrative Expenses	Selling and Administrative Expenses Selling and administrative expenses include all operating costs of the Company excluding (i) those related to the transportation of products from the supplier to the warehouse, (ii) for its retail operations, those related to the transportation of products from the warehouse to the store and from the warehouse to the customer and (iii) costs of its distribution facilities which are allocated to its retail operations.
Buying, Merchandising and Occupancy Costs	Buying, Merchandising and Occupancy Costs The Company records buying, merchandising and occupancy costs in selling and administrative expense on the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations. Because the Company does not include these costs in cost of sales, the Company’s gross margin may not be comparable to other retailers that include these costs in the calculation of gross margin.
Advertising Costs	Advertising Costs Advertising costs are predominantly expensed as incurred. Advertising costs were $19.0 million and $19.6 million for the first quarters of Fiscal 2019 and Fiscal 2018, respectively. Prior to adopting ASC 606, the Company capitalized these costs and such costs were expensed over the period of benefit in accordance with the Other Assets and Deferred Costs Topic for Capitalized Advertising Costs of the Codification.
Foreign Currency Translation	Foreign Currency Translation The functional currency of the Company's foreign operations is the applicable local currency. The translation of the applicable foreign currency into U.S. dollars is performed for balance sheet accounts using current exchange rates in effect at the balance sheet date. Income and expense accounts are translated at monthly average exchange rates. The unearned gains and losses resulting from such translation are included as a separate component of accumulated other comprehensive loss within shareholders' equity.
Other Comprehensive Income	Other Comprehensive Income ASC 220 requires, among other things, the Company’s pension liability adjustment, postretirement liability adjustment and foreign currency translation adjustment to be included in other comprehensive income net of tax.
New Accounting Pronouncements	New Accounting Pronouncements New Accounting Pronouncements Recently Adopted In March 2018, the Financial Accounting Standards Board ("FASB") issued Accounting Standards Update ("ASU") 2018-05, “Income Taxes (Topic 740): Amendments to SEC Paragraphs Pursuant to SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 118.” The new guidance provides SEC Staff views on income tax accounting implications of the Act signed into law in December 2017. The guidance clarifies the measurement period timeframe, changes in subsequent reporting periods and reporting requirements as a result of the Act. The Company adopted this guidance in the first quarter of Fiscal 2019. The Company recorded a provisional impact of the Act in Fiscal 2018 and will recognize any changes to this provisional amount as the Company refines its estimates of its cumulative temporary differences and interpretations of guidance related to the application of the Act. The adoption of this guidance has not had, nor is expected to have, a material impact on the Company's Consolidated Financial Statements and related disclosures. Note 1 Summary of Significant Accounting Policies, Continued In February 2018, the FASB issued issued ASU 2018-02, "Income Statement - Reporting Comprehensive Income (Topic 220): Reclassification of Certain Tax Effects from Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income" ("ASC 220"), which allows a reclassification from accumulated other comprehensive income to retained earnings for stranded tax effects resulting from the Act. This guidance is effective for all entities for fiscal years, and interim periods within those years, beginning after December 15, 2018, with early adoption permitted. The amendments in ASC 220 should be applied either in the period of adoption or retrospectively to each period in which the effect of the change in the U.S. federal corporate income tax rate in the Act is recognized. The Company adopted ASC 220 in the fourth quarter of Fiscal 2018 and reclassed $2.2 million to retained earnings for the impact of stranded tax effects resulting from the Act. In March 2017, the FASB issued ASU 2017-07, "Compensation - Retirement Benefits (Topic 715)" ("ASC 715"). The standard requires the sponsors of benefit plans to present service cost in the same line item or items as other current employee compensation costs, and present the remaining components of net benefit cost in one or more separate line items outside of income from operations, while also limiting the components of net benefit cost eligible to be capitalized to service cost. The standard will require the Company to present the non-service pension costs as a component of expense below operating income. The amendments to this standard allow a practical expedient that permits an employer to use the amounts disclosed in its employee benefits footnote for the prior comparative period as the estimation basis for applying the retrospective presentation. The standard is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2017, including interim periods within those fiscal years. The Company adopted ASC 715 in the first quarter of Fiscal 2019 and utilized the practical expedient to estimate the impact on the prior comparative period information presented in the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations. As required by the amendments in this update, the presentation of the service cost component and other components of net periodic benefit cost in the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations were applied retrospectively on and after the effective date. Upon adoption of this standard update, the Company reclassified the other components of net periodic benefit cost from selling and administrative expenses to other components of net periodic benefit cost on the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations. The retrospective adoption of this standard update resulted in an increase to earnings from operations of less than $0.1 million for the three months ended April 29, 2017 which was fully offset by the same amount on the other components of net periodic benefit cost line on the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations. As such, there was no impact to consolidated net earnings for the three months ended April 29, 2017. Note 1 Summary of Significant Accounting Policies, Continued The Company adopted ASC 606 in the first quarter of Fiscal 2019 using the modified retrospective method by recognizing the cumulative effect of $4.4 million as an adjustment to the opening balance of retained earnings at February 4, 2018. The comparative information has not been restated and continues to be reported under the accounting standards in effect for those periods. While the adoption of this standard did not have a material impact on the Company's Consolidated Financial Statements and related disclosures, it did impact the timing of revenue recognition for gift card breakage and the timing of recognizing expense for direct-mail advertising costs as presented in the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations for Fiscal 2019. New Accounting Pronouncements Not Yet Adopted In February 2016, the FASB issued ASU 2016-02, "Leases". The standard's core principle is to increase transparency and comparability among organizations by recognizing lease assets and liabilities on the balance sheet and disclosing key information. The standard is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2018, including interim periods within those fiscal years, which would be the beginning of our Fiscal 2020 or February 2019. Early adoption is permitted. The Company is currently assessing the impact the adoption of ASU 2016-02 will have on its Consolidated Financial Statements and related disclosures and is expecting a material impact because the Company is party to a significant number of lease contracts.