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flaunt the imperfection
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Wednesday, April 06, 2005
The Designers Behind J. Crew
By Marc Karimzadeh
NEW YORK — ...gushed Jenna Lyons, the retailer’s senior vice president of women’s design, ...about Mickey [Drexler, J. Crew’s chairman and chief executive officer]. He’s been pushing us to push the envelope.”
After Drexler joined the company from Gap Inc. in 2003, he and president Jeff Pfeifle, whom he brought along, wasted no time in injecting the brand with anew sense of luxury and cool. For the last three seasons, J. Crew noticeably has been updating its collections and improving its colors, the quality of its fabrics, the design and overall fit. While the company isn’t walking away from American classics such as chinos, button-down shirts and ribbon belts, it has started to pepper select boutiques with luxurious items. These days, a customer passing J. Crew’s thresholds is as likely to find tailored cashmere coats and suits, intricately embroidered pants and heavily beaded tops as the classics.
Drexler relied on Lyons, a J. Crew veteran who has been with the brand for 15 years, to oversee the design makeover.
Lyons is a downtown type who appears a little disheveled, but in a studied way. She mixes and matches new pieces with vintage ones that are a little frayed around the edges. On this day, for instance, she wears torn faded jeans adorned with pins she must have used while tweaking a sample. In many ways, she is the perfect incarnation of the J. Crew woman for whom she designs.
“I like things that get better with age,” she said. “We have always focused on something that is going to look good even after you have had it a little bit. Maybe it is frayed a little on the edges, maybe it is starting to wash down a little too much. I actually think that that looks good. That, to me, is classic.”
“Mickey really pushed for quality and not just quality of design, but also the quality of how the customer experiences the catalogue, the way you experience the stores, what kind of sales people there are or what the sales people are wearing. On every level, he was pushing the quality angle.”
To that end, the designer was given more upscale resources to work with, from Italian and Scottish mills and print specialists to Indian beading experts. These days, J. Crew makes no secret of the fact that cashmeres and wools originate at Loro Piana, prints are developed by Ratti and beading is done by hand by Shameeza.
The renewed focus on quality and design also extends to J. Crew’s men’s wear. Todd Snyder, vice president of men’s design, joined the company a year and a half ago from Old Navy. He started his career at J. Crew 12 years ago, but left to work at Ralph Lauren before joining Old Navy. Snyder updated J. Crew’s suits with Loro Piana wools and real Harris tweeds. From a design point of view, he lifted the armhole, narrowed the sleeve-head and slimmed the waist for a modern silhouette.
With more upscale pieces also comes new price points, but Pfeifle stressed that prices haven’t drastically changed; they have just widened as the collections grew.
“Some of the price points have gone up, but the value has gone up, too,”...
...the company plans to add jewelry in select stores, with casual coral, wood and beaded classifications. ...
excerpt from wwd...
The Designers Behind J. Crew
By Marc Karimzadeh
NEW YORK — ...gushed Jenna Lyons, the retailer’s senior vice president of women’s design, ...about Mickey [Drexler, J. Crew’s chairman and chief executive officer]. He’s been pushing us to push the envelope.”
After Drexler joined the company from Gap Inc. in 2003, he and president Jeff Pfeifle, whom he brought along, wasted no time in injecting the brand with anew sense of luxury and cool. For the last three seasons, J. Crew noticeably has been updating its collections and improving its colors, the quality of its fabrics, the design and overall fit. While the company isn’t walking away from American classics such as chinos, button-down shirts and ribbon belts, it has started to pepper select boutiques with luxurious items. These days, a customer passing J. Crew’s thresholds is as likely to find tailored cashmere coats and suits, intricately embroidered pants and heavily beaded tops as the classics.
Drexler relied on Lyons, a J. Crew veteran who has been with the brand for 15 years, to oversee the design makeover.
Lyons is a downtown type who appears a little disheveled, but in a studied way. She mixes and matches new pieces with vintage ones that are a little frayed around the edges. On this day, for instance, she wears torn faded jeans adorned with pins she must have used while tweaking a sample. In many ways, she is the perfect incarnation of the J. Crew woman for whom she designs.
“I like things that get better with age,” she said. “We have always focused on something that is going to look good even after you have had it a little bit. Maybe it is frayed a little on the edges, maybe it is starting to wash down a little too much. I actually think that that looks good. That, to me, is classic.”
“Mickey really pushed for quality and not just quality of design, but also the quality of how the customer experiences the catalogue, the way you experience the stores, what kind of sales people there are or what the sales people are wearing. On every level, he was pushing the quality angle.”
To that end, the designer was given more upscale resources to work with, from Italian and Scottish mills and print specialists to Indian beading experts. These days, J. Crew makes no secret of the fact that cashmeres and wools originate at Loro Piana, prints are developed by Ratti and beading is done by hand by Shameeza.
The renewed focus on quality and design also extends to J. Crew’s men’s wear. Todd Snyder, vice president of men’s design, joined the company a year and a half ago from Old Navy. He started his career at J. Crew 12 years ago, but left to work at Ralph Lauren before joining Old Navy. Snyder updated J. Crew’s suits with Loro Piana wools and real Harris tweeds. From a design point of view, he lifted the armhole, narrowed the sleeve-head and slimmed the waist for a modern silhouette.
With more upscale pieces also comes new price points, but Pfeifle stressed that prices haven’t drastically changed; they have just widened as the collections grew.
“Some of the price points have gone up, but the value has gone up, too,”...
...the company plans to add jewelry in select stores, with casual coral, wood and beaded classifications. ...
excerpt from wwd...
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