After 27 years as the iconic mind behind J.Crew creative, Jenna Lyons is a few months into the launch of a brand new startup – Loveseen. Of course, her decades of creative and marketing success are invaluable to her new pursuit, but she admits that she still has a lot she has to learn.
“The fact matter is, I'm still the person that just wanted to make beautiful things and that hasn't changed.”
Loveseen's AR Instagram filter.
Show notes
0:41 Amidst a slew of new projects — running Loveseen, designing a hotel in the Bahamas, hosting Stylish on HBO Max — Jenna finds herself using familiar skills in unfamiliar territory. The biggest shift from her J. Crew tenure to starting fresh with Loveseen is going from working with a large team of specialists to a small team of generalists.
11:57 At Loveseen, Jenna is all in, working on photoshoots, writing copy, creative direction — all the hands-on creative projects she was missing in her previous role. She shares why false eyelashes are a passion and why now was the right time to launch, despite shifting launch plans due to the pandemic.
26:25 Speaking of trying on eyelashes with an Instagram filter, Jenna talks about the expanding role tech as an extension of fashion. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
29:06 On Stylish, Jenna discovered a humbling appreciation for the clarity and intention that goes into being on camera. Despite the thick-rimmed, slicked-back iconic look she dawned as the Creative Director at J.Crew, she never thought much about creating personal brand, until the associates on Stylish brought it to her attention. "When I was coming up in the world, people weren't brands. A brand was a brand. It was a company, It was something with a label and a door and a logo."
36:31 From the legacy of J.Crew's heritage brand to the physical constraints of building in the Bahamas post-earthquake, Jenna acknowledges the opportunity that can be found in constraint. But she's also loving the freedom of defining her own limits with Loveseen.
44:32 Did you know Jenna is on the board of Shake Shack?
51:45 Jenna and Stephan discuss what they miss, and don't miss about in-office work. Are we willing to lose spontaneous whiteboarding sessions for the freedom of a midday jog? And how can we shift workflows to be more asynchronous?
Also mentioned in the episode
- A Conversation with Derek Lam and Jenna Lyons at Parsons The New School for Design
- James Charles on YouTube
- The history of false eyelashes
- Erin Parsons, makeup artist
- Tribute Brand
- Sedlec Ossuary
- Sailor's valentine
- Randy Garutti, CEO of Shake Shack
- Danny Meyer, founder of Shake Shack
- Brett Bouttier
- Mickey Drexler
- The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster
Header image via HBO Max. Thumbnail image via The New Yorker. All other images via Loveseen.
You can find this and all future episodes on iTunes, Google Play, and here on the Lumi blog. This episode was edited by Evan Goodchild.
