Around 2010, J. Crew was riding a heady cultural moment.
First Lady Michelle Obama, whose style-icon bona fides were on the rise, was turning up at official events and on late night talk shows in J. Crew duds, placing the brand in the national conversation and blowing up sales. FLOTUS-worn J. Crew fare routinely sold out.
That FLOTUS fare was a result of the work of creative director Jenna Lyons, whose fashion influence at J. Crew was at an all-time high.
Lyons brought edgy, baubles-and-sequins glamour to the upscale preppy brand, earning her a reputation as an arbiter of style among the fashion industry and J. Crew devotees alike, with the merchant touting her must-have pieces in magazine style spreads on its website as, “Jenna’s Picks.”
Now that arbiter of style has been told her services are no longer needed, ending a 26-year stint with the retailer.
"Jenna and I got together and we both agreed it was time for a change,” J. Crew chief executive Millard "Mickey" Drexler told the Business of Fashion on Monday.
J. Crew has struggled over the past few years to define its reason for being in a rapidly transforming shopping landscape, where consumers, who increasingly price compare products from their phones, are opting for off-price chains like T.J. Maxx and fast-fashion merchants such as H&M, which sell bargain runway knockoffs, leaving J. Crew and its $68 eyelet-trimmed tops behind.
Then there’s the elephant in the [fashion] room: Amazon, which is scooping up more and more apparel market share.
Today, Moody’s Investor Services counts J. Crew among the nation’s most distressed retail and apparel companies due to its weak operating performance and high debt burden, according to a February report.
To reverse declining sales, the specialty retailer has been moving away from its high-end fashion strategy, a hallmark of Lyons' tenure, and increasingly drawing from its more basic, preppy roots, at more affordable price points.
While J. Crew, which declined comment, said in a statement that it’s not replacing Lyons, the retailer promoted Somsack Sikhounmuong, currently head of women’s design, to the chief design officer post, putting him in charge of the company's women’s, men’s and crewcuts design teams, effective immediately.
Sikhounmuong, who’s been with J. Crew since 2001, used to head up design at Madewell, the spin-off brand that’s been a bright spot for the retailer. Drexler called Sikhounmuong, who reports directly to him, a key component of Madewell's success.
Is A Jenna-Less J. Crew At Greater Risk?
Lyons' resignation reads in part like J. Crew’s response to the consumer migration to online shopping, said Jonathan Chanti, senior vice president of influencer marketing platform HYPR Brands.
“There’s no doubt Jenna Lyons is the epitome of what J.Crew embodies from an aesthetic and design perspective, but it doesn’t seem like it's been successful in its attempt to overcome that [online] shift, as they have reported a substantial loss in sales two years in a row," he said. "Like Barnes & Noble dealing with Amazon, J. Crew faces a world where designers with significant lower overhead costs are able to sell directly to the consumer.”
J. Crew's big misstep was being reactionary and straying from its brand DNA, according to Gesina Gudehus-Wittern, engagement manager at brand strategy consultancy Vivaldi. “Their mistake has been to react to a changing market by trying to be everything to everyone instead of committing to one customer and one clear point of view," she said. “It was exactly their crystal clear sense of who their customer was … that allowed [Drexler and Lyons] to triple revenue between 2003 and 2011.”
But a J. Crew without Lyons risks alienating its most loyal shoppers, Gudehus-Wittern said. Just as designer Karl Lagerfeld was invaluable to the Chanel brand, Lyons' own personal style in the customers’ eyes “has been one of most successful elements of the J. Crew brand that others have tried to replicate without success.
"Let’s hope they have this figured out, as there certainly is no room for another brand without a personality in the highly fragmented women’s fashion market."
