Quitting the Crew

On Monday, fashion visionary Jenna Lyons rocked the style world by exiting J Crew after 26 years

ON THE face of it, a six-foot tall fortysomething with false teeth and nerdy librarian specs isn’t the most l i ke ly candidate to be exalted as a fashion icon. Yet for more than a decade, Jenna Lyons was exactly that. As head of design, and eventually president, of the cult American preppie brand J. Crew, Lyons was a bona fide It girl, one with way more style and substance than a Gigi or a Kendall. For a particular genre of woman who always felt slightly bogus “dressing for the office”, Lyons was a saviour. She showed that “workwear” needn’t be a dreary white shirt tucked into a drab grey pencil skirt. Even the most ponderous, unadventurous dresser could enter J Crew and come away convinced that yes, a bib-fronted pinstripe shirt and bright red cropped trousers could genuinely work for them. Add a cropped blazer into the mix and maybe that promotion would be theirs.

“I have never felt more fashionable than the day Jenna Lyons complimented my outfit — a blindingly metallic pencil skirt that I had teamed with a plain T- shirt and flat shoes — because, frankly, she is my style icon,” says Jo Elvin, editor of Glamour. “She completely changed the way I dress, along with millions of others, with the quirky, slightly ‘wrong’ aesthetic she brought to J Crew. Whenever I’m stuck for what to wear, I find myself asking, ‘What would Jenna wear?’”

It’s the question many cash-rich, timepoor women have asked themselves during her tenure. Which is why news that Lyons, 48, is to leave the company after 26 years feels more seismic than such announcements usually do. “Jenna and I got together and we both agreed it was time for a change,” J Crew’s chief executive Mickey Drexler, 72, told The Business of Fashion on Monday. “It’s been a great run. There’s a lot of mutual respect between Jenna and me.” In a statement, Lyons described Drexler as “o n e of r e t a i l ’s m o s t talented visionaries”, adding that she was “excited for the next chapter for J Crew as well as the opportunity for other creative leaders within the organisation to step up and take on new responsibilities.” J Crew’s current head designer of womenswear, Somsack Sikhounmuong, will be promoted to chief design officer, responsible for women’s, men’s and childrenswear, effective immediately.

That Lyons is stepping down is a stark reminder that in fashion you’re only as good as your last retail results. In 2016, total revenues decreased by six per cent to $2 billion, with store sales falling by an average of eight per cent. The

By the time Banana Republic and J Crew opened here, they’d already missed the boat

company also has debts totalling $1.5 billion, causing insiders to whisper darkly about impending bankruptcy. It’s all a far cry from J Crew’s heyday, when its Tilly sweaters were ubiquitous, its statement necklaces were a fash-pack favourite and Lyons was starring in Season 3 of Girls.

Perhaps Lyons is jumping ship before the ship sinks further. It is surely significant that one of J Crew’s most prominent fans is Michelle Obama, the only First Lady to have worn massmarket clothing with such conviction. Recalling photos from 2009 of Mrs Obama and her daughters dressed in J Crew clothes for Barack Obama’s first swearing-in ceremony, it’s hard not to feel a pang of nostalgia. Melania Trump is unlikely to wear J Crew. Her husband is equally unlikely to invite Lyons and her same-sex partner to the White House, as the Obamas did in 2013.

But if Lyons’s departure feels like the end of a greater cultural era, it also feels like the end of Britain’s long-running love affair with American fashion — or at least that mass-market portion of it that we once held so dear. It’s not just US politics with which we Brits have become disenchanted: it’s also US style. In the early 2000s, fashion-conscious visitors to New York would hot-foot it to chains such as J Crew, Banana Republic, Club Monaco and Forever 21 to load their baskets with well-cut, exotic-seeming items that seemed pleasingly affordable, thanks to the relative strength of the pound against the dollar. Yet by the time Banana Republic opened its first UK store in 2008, followed by J Crew in 2013, it was hard not to feel as though they’d already missed the boat. Fast fashion is named thus for a reason: it moves at lightning speed.

So, too, do consumer tastes and preferences. Like fellow US chains Banana Republic (who closed all eight of its British stores after 18 months of poor sales) and Gap (despite revival strategies, sales have been in continual decline for several years now), J Crew has been crushed by the might of H&M and Zara, whose stores are almost as ubiquitous in the US as they are in the UK. You can’t exit J Crew with a headto-toe new look — shoes, bag, dress, jacket — for £300: a “pop-stripe Italian cashmere sweater” alone costs £308, though admittedly this is at the top end of J Crew’s price architecture. “It’s just too expensive. Why spend £100 on an off-shoulder top when there are several