J.Crew's Jenna Lyons & the Cult of J.Crew

"Thanks!" to so many of you, including Nicole, Ji (in this post), ReaganFlowers & ruffles (in this post), as well as Cole of Fast Company, who shared the following great article from Fast Company about J.Crew's Jenna Lyons. Cole also shares:

 "...Fast Company's exclusive with J.Crew's president Jenna Lyons, live on Fast Company.com on Monday, April  15, on newsstands Tuesday, April 23. Our May cover feature explores how Jenna Lyons has taken J.Crew from ugly ducking to fashion arbiter – and counts Anna Wintour and Michelle Obama as die hard fans. Learn from the creatives at J.Crew (Jenna, Mickey Drexler, ) how collaboration, creativity and innovation has shaped this brand on fire..."

To read the article in its entirety, click HERE. To view the slideshow of Jenna's office {swoon}, click HERE. The following are just a few portions of the detailed and lengthy article (that is definitely worth reading!):

How Jenna Lyons Transformed J.Crew Into A Cult Brand
See how Jenna Lyons has taken J.Crew from ugly duckling to fashion arbiter.
By Danielle Sacks
April 15, 2013

• After graduating from Parsons in 1990, the then 21-year-old started as an "assistant to an assistant to someone else's assistant," as she puts it, designing the company's old-world men's rugby shirts.
• Todd Snyder, Drexler's former head of men's wear at Gap, advised him to seek out Lyons, at the time J.Crew's vice president of women's design, likening her to Calvin Klein in the early days. "Jenna was a great designer, she looks like a model, and then she talks like the best salesperson you ever met," says Snyder. "I think she's the most talented person he's ever worked with in design."
• Their partnership would mark the end of the days when J.Crew's product design was dictated by corporate strategy. Together, they would make and sell only what they loved. The love would not be unconditional; they would adjust their product line always, trying new ideas, assessing, and quickly getting rid of anything that didn't work. Under Drexler and Lyons, J.Crew would become a company of constant and freewheeling experimentation, iteration, adaptation.
• J.Crew employees reveal themselves by the nakedness of their ankles. It's as if the company's uniform, ambiently dictated by Lyons, is enforced only from the knees down. Bare ankles, for men and women alike ...
• Lyons believed that to create a coherent brand and drive the business forward, every piece of the creative organization--from retail to catalog to web--had to be unified.
• In 2010, her lobbying paid off. J.Crew's president, according to the official announcement, stepped down "to spend more time with her children," and Drexler gave the title to Lyons. "It was literally a two-second conversation," says Lyons. "He pulled me into a room and said, 'So, just want to let you know you're the president.' I was like, uh, okay. Alrighty then. Then I put my head down on the table, took 10 deep breaths, sat back up and was like, 'Okay, do I need to do anything different?' And he was like, 'No, just keep doing what you're doing.' I'm like, 'Okay,' and we walked out of the room. That was it."
• "It's hard when the finance team is used to putting a light fixture in the store that costs $2,000 and I'm like, 'Well, I want an $8,000 fixture,'" says Lyons. "You have to get people to understand why having that Serge Mouille light fixture is better, because it's beautiful and people will know something's different. Maybe when you look at that $200 cashmere sweater, you'll feel like, 'Oh, yeah, look at the store, it's so beautiful. This $200 sweater is a steal.'"
• More recently, Lyons worked a bold overhaul of the catalogs. With 40 million copies distributed every year, the catalogs are at the root of J.Crew's business and constitute some of the brand's most precious real estate. Yet for years, the catalog lineup was dictated by sales from the year before. Pictures of each item ran alongside clunky color swatches and dense text; perhaps only 2 out of 100 pages were devoted to material that might be called editorial. The reimagined catalog supports the idea of J.Crew as tastemaker, with multipage stories packaged around trends, such as "The Italian Shoe Collection: Designed in New York. Made in Italy" for some fancy leather flats. Today, the J.Crew Style Guide--its new name--and its website have more of the feel of a fashion magazine.
• When I get home, I dig up the piece: "Has J.Crew finally found a rival? Gap makes big comeback." It is the worst kind of story for J.Crew, lumping it in with Drexler's ex, a name that is practically forbidden in the office.
• "Mickey wants to be so cool so bad," says the former employee. "Jenna is confident and cool and human and comfortable with herself and gives him the credibility he needs to be on fire. And he has her back in a way no one else can." I ask Lyons what everyone in the business wonders: When will she leave J.Crew to start her own line? She says it's not in the cards, at least for now. As she has said, she already is building her own collection, and she wouldn't be able to do so on her own. Her former colleague Todd Snyder argues that no designer in Lyons's shoes would ever have a reason to leave. "Mickey has given her enough runway so she can really make of it what she wants," he says. "They should just call it Jenna Crew."

I am a little bummed out that the article mentions a few J.Crew-fanatic blogs (congrats to those who got mentioned!) and the JCrew Aficionada blog was omitted. Especially since the magazine reached out to me (to let me know about this article to feature on this very blog!) Not the first time this has happened (and won't be the last). ;)

As for the article itself, it was a good, in-depth, look at J.Crew. Although many JCAs are aware of Jenna's back story and ascension to the executive ranks of J.Crew, it is always fascinating to read it again.

So many interesting tidbits that can be read between the lines too! First, the former J.Crew president who "stepped down" was Tracy Gardner (president from 2004 to 2010). This is just speculation (and speculation only), but many thought that she might have been asked to leave so Jenna could take her place. The irony is that Tracey became an adviser to the Gap (yup, that Gap!) last year (refer here).

Second, I find it interesting that Jenna is creating her own collection. We all saw the J.Crew custom designed dress of Jenna's own design for the Vanity Fair Oscar party (click here). Does this mean Jenna will have her own capsule line within the brand?

Did you enjoy the article? Any points you thought were particularly interesting? :)