Employed by J. Crew for 26 years, a job she began as an assistant menswear designer at 21, style star Jenna Lyons is stepping down from her roll as creative director and president, titles she’s held since 2008 and 2010 respectively. Lyons will remain with J.Crew as a creative advisor until the end of her current contract, which expires in December 2017.
Famed retail personality and J. Crew CEO Mickey Drexler told Business of Fashion he met with Lyons and they agreed the timing was right for Lyons to depart. “Jenna and I got together and we both agreed it was time for a change,” said Drexler. “That being said, she’s got plans to do other things. It’s been a great run. There’s a lot of mutual respect between Jenna and me.”
Lyons also had plenty of nice to things to say about her time at J.Crew. “It has been beyond my wildest dreams to work with such an amazing team of people at such an incredible brand and alongside Mickey, one of retail’s most talented visionaries,” Lyons said in a statement. “I am excited about 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. Having spent the better part of my life with J.Crew, I feel an immense pride and love for everyone at the company.”
J.Crew’s women’s head of design, Somsack Sikhounmuong, will take on the roll of chief design officer, overseeing women’s, men’s and children’s designs, a move up in the ranks fueled by his success leading Madewell’s design team. All other departments that reported to Lyons will now report to Drexler.
The change in leadership comes during tough times for the once high-flying J.Crew, a chain like many that’s been challenged by a changing retail landscape in which mall traffic has dropped and those who do deign to actually shop at stores are opting for lower price options offered by fast fashion and off price retailers.
While Drexler had nothing but positive things to say about Lyons, looking at company sales trends in 2016 gives some clues as to why Sikhounmuong is now sitting in the top creative perch.
Last year, overall company sales decreased three percent to $2.45 billion. The problem was J.Crew, where sales decreased six percent to $2.02 billion with comparable sales down eight percent on top of a decrease the prior year of 10 percent. Meanwhile at Madewell (which, granted in a much smaller chain), sales were on the rise, increasing 14 percent to $342 million with comparable sales up five percent following an increase of eight percent in 2015.
Similar to Lyons, the Tornonto-born Sikhounmuong is a Parson graduate (class of 1999 versus Lyons in 1990), and worked for a short while at Diane von Furstenberg before moving on in 2001 to J. Crew, where he started out designing handbags, according to the NY Times. He was moved over to head of design at Madewell in 2012 and promoted to the head of women’s design at J. Crew in June 2015, taking the place of Tom Mora, who is now a creative director at Cole Haan.
Check out a recent style-related video featuring Sikhounmuong below.
