A Little "Crew"zy, : The "J" is for Jenna. J. Crew's Jenna Lyons, A Real Superstar.

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

The "J" is for Jenna. J. Crew's Jenna Lyons, A Real Superstar.

Jenna Lyons photographed for Fast
Company by Yu Tsai

This blog post contains excerpts from Fast Company's recent article "How J. Crew Stays White Hot", May 2013 with credits noted. This post also contains my own personal viewpoints on J. Crew and Jenna Lyons. I am a big fan so I was elated to see this article. I also took this opportunity to share some personal details about Jenna's life and other creative musings.

Jenna Lyons is the kind of woman you want to be friends with and not just because of her style. Although, her enviable shoe closet, or shall I say shoe room makes most of us girls swoon. And she is wicked smart. I also learned she is a sensitive leader with the people that work for her and the creative process overall.

Fast Company recently interviewed Jenna Lyons, the creative brain behind J. Crew. And while she is rather soft spoken for press, she has the kind of flair that you would only expect from someone quite confident to pull off. Her style is ever reflective of all the things she loves about J. Crew.

Jenna has become a fashion cult darling having driven J. Crew's "annual revenue to more than triple to $2.2 billion since 2003." But Jenna didn't start out with early signs of confidence and assuredness. She opened up to Fast Company saying that she "was subjected to almost constant bullying" in her childhood. She said she was born with "incontinentia pigmenti, a genetic disorder that led to scarred skin, patchy hair, and lost teeth requiring dentures as a kid." She goes on to say that her "nonchalant manner became her defense, and she found refuge in art." She told FC that she used her creativity to make things "more beautiful and surrounded herself with beautiful things because she didn't feel that in herself." Her love for art followed her throughout as she went on to graduate from The Parsons School of Design in 1990. For those of us who love her tall, gawky. semi-nerdy, sometimes "borrowed from the boys" look, one would never have guessed she endured such a challenging and uncomfortable childhood.

Early Jenna, a portrait
by Tim Allen used in
INDUSTRIE 2/6/11

The 2013 TIME 100
Jenna Lyons, Tastemaker, 44 by Prabal Gurung
Photo credit by Peter Hapak for TIME

Lyons went on to work for J. Crew where at 21 years old, she started as an assistant, and so on and literally worked her way up the ladder. FC learned she has one of the company's longest tenures. And, as Fast Company describes, J. Crew went from its "preppy Nantucket ancestry to a force in fashion with Lyons at the center of its evolution." This billion dollar retailer has all of us talking. She's brought real sparkle to the brand and it has obviously payed off substantially.

When Jenna crossed paths with 68-year old Mickey Drexler (former Gap notoriety), who became J. Crew's chairman and CEO in 2003, she continued to grow with his support and the two became a most "intriguing and fruitful" pairing says Fast Company. This was in part due to abandoning "corporate strategy" and really getting behind products that they loved. Jenna, now 44 has been able to grow her own talent as well as the teams autonomously. This partnership also changed a culture so to speak and as FC observed within, there were men and women showing "bare ankles"and a shoe repertoire such as "hip bucks, ballet flats, vintage Nikes and glittery pumps" throughout the office which Lyons dictates! The company lives and breathes a style reflective of the J. Crew brand or should I say the "Jenna" brand which is a far cry from a stifled, corporate dress-code.

"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." from Fast Company article
Click on link for 360 virtual tour of Jenna's office

Jenna also discusses with Fast Company how she holds the creative teams accountable with a "therapist's touch". As a designer herself, she understands that each person has a lot of "emotion" needing "a lot of stroking," she says. This is where I personally respect her style in that people strive to put something that they really love in front of their leader and if you crush their ideas then you really crush their spirit as Jenna understands so well. The article says her challenging childhood has much to do with why she is so sensitive and in my mind this is ultimately a very positive quality. On top of her skin condition, she also watched her parents divorce when she was in the seventh grade. This drove her to thinking that she had to "work her ass off" she says to FC, so she didn't have to "rely on a man" like her mother had done for so many years.
In this article, Jenna talks about giving her staff "implicit permission to take risks." This in turn has really shifted the business where "design involves more than a shift in power structure. It means

Jenna at Milk Studios S/S 2013
Presentation
photo by The Billy Farrell Agency

running the business in a completely different way."

Jenna with her son Beckett, at the
2008 tree lighting ceremony
in Rockefeller Center

In 2010, Drexler charged Lyons as J. Crew's new president and she says that she asked him if there was anything she needed to do differently and the answer was no. She was to carry out exactly what she had been doing and she she went on to really immerse herself in finding the best products and potential collaborators to strengthen the J. Crew brand. This was obviously a strategy the company had not previously practiced. And she has her hands in everything from "the layout of a nursing room" to the "lighting" in a brick and mortar stores. She has a design aesthetic that is now more cohesive which the organization desperately needed. Many of us also know that Jenna plays a huge role with the catalogs which Fast Company learned are the "root of J. Crew's business and constitute some of the brand's most precious real-estate." I personally love that the catalogs play out like an editorial magazine aligned to a story, typically in a beautiful place focusing on current trends. This is evident in "The Italian Shoe Collection: Designed in New York. Made in Italy." These feel like magazines verses predictable catalogs.

A happy Jenna Lyons with partner Courtney
Crangi in their first public photo for
V Magazine (Photo by Philippe
Vogelenzang)

Fast Company learns in one of their interviews with Jenna that her "personal life has played out like tabloid fodder since 2011, when she got divorced and paired up with a woman." She is candid and never claims to be perfect either as an executive or how she was as the wife to her ex-husband. It is obviously very sad that there was a divorce, but a lovely story began to evolve when Jenna publicly announced her relationship with Courtney Crangi at the Glamour 2012 Women of the Year Awards. Lyons says about Crangi, "For me, the best thing is knowing that someone really has your back. Like no matter what happens she has my best interests at heart." Jenna went on to say during her acceptance speech, "Nothing worth having is easy," before thanking Courtney, "who has shown me a new love."

One thing is for sure about Jenna Lyons. She is a great designer, a mother, partner and friend. The FC article reveals that she is described by her colleagues with a "keen business mind, and that easy oscillation between her two selves" which has brought her much success. FC goes on to say that if Drexler taught Lyons one thing, it's that "you are only as good as your last suit." Lyons apparently has a way of managing Drexler and serving as his "editor" and "translator", says Fast Company. The interview says that Lyons is "one of the few people that can rein Drexler in." I think that this is necessary in most great business relationships and in business, a mark

Drexler and J. Crew team including Lyons center
photo taken from www.theluxechronicles.com

of strength as a team. Both Drexler and Lyons have conducted a major overhaul to the once preppy retailer. For those of us that love to see what Lyons and her team will present with each catalog or each fashion show, it is always a thrill. The blogosphere which obviously includes myself, take liberty in presenting our "yay" and "nays" with each new collection!

I'd like to think that Jenna really listens to what the customers are saying and after reading this article from FC, I think that she even cares. It is evident that she cares an awful lot. Most of us would give an arm and a leg to work for someone that champions our creative ideas and can gently lead toward a most productive and positive path. Go Jenna. I will always have a style-crush on you! As a woman, I feel empowered and inspired by her. I am excited to see what J. Crew will do next.

The Fast Company article entitled "How J. Crew Stays White Hot (It's a Secret!)" was by Danielle Sacks (sacks@fastcompany.com) with photographs by Yu Tsai.

My readers: What did you think about the Fast Company article? Do you have any comments about Jenna and the J. Crew team overall? Have you been happy with the overall direction the company has been taking through its collaborative approach with different brands and partners? What changes would you like to see made?

Gwyneth Paltrow in head to toe J. Crew

From mothers and daughters to celebrities and our presidential royalty, we all wear J. Crew. Gwyneth Paltrow in Fall Fashion J. Crew from GP's own Goop Journal 9/13/2012.