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COPYRIGHT 2006 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Byline: Mark Holgate
Early in December, while New York is still deep in a post-_Thanksgiving daze, the J.Crew design team is feverishly thinking about the future. It is their big day to unveil their vision of fall 2006 to J.Crew's Mr. Big, Millard "Mickey" Drexler. "Jenna, Jenna, where are you?" hollers Drexler. Out of the melee of publicists, buyers, marketing executives, and one guy whose job it is to capture all this on a camcorder steps Jenna Lyons, senior vice president of women's design, who at six feet is way taller than just about everyone else in the room. She quickly goes through the collection's key pieces-ruffled striped shirts, skinny gilt-button cardigans, nipped-waist polka-dot dresses-before the assembled multitude squeezes into a corridor that Drexler dubs "a trip down Wedding Lane." On show are the latest versions of the bridal looks that Lyons has helped turn into one of J.Crew's more lucrative successes of recent times. Drexler leaps onto a display stand and grapples with a mannequin, lifting up a pale-pink cashmere shell to get a better look at the proportions of a floor-length taffeta skirt, the waistband of which is near level with his chest. "Hey, Jenna!" he shouts out, simultaneously playing to the crowd and affectionately teasing Lyons. "This is where the waist sits? Well, I suppose that's where your waist sits!"
When Jenna Lyons declares that "the DNA of J.Crew is in me," you believe her. It is undoubtedly something to do with the way she looks. She's tawny and athletic, with the kind of architecturally planed and angled beauty that recalls the era of models Tatjana Patitz and Cordula Reyer. It's also the way she wears the label effortlessly, while always bringing something of her own to it. For today's unveiling, Lyons, 37, is in a cream-and-brown horse-bit-print silk shirtdress stamped sample on the back (to her surprise it fit, so she thought, Why not?) and a pair of tan riding boots....
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