Whispers about the need for design change at the brand began in 2015, when Tom Mora, head of women’s design, was fired
and Mr. Sikhounmuong was moved up from his design role at Madewell, the hipper, younger (and growing) brand under the J.
On Monday, the downward spiral of the company that catapulted to trend-setting prominence on the back of Michelle Obama claimed its highest-profile head with the news
that Jenna Lyons, officially president and executive creative director of the brand, and unofficially its public face, would be leaving.
Instead, Somsack Sikhounmuong, head of women’s design, will become chief design officer,
with responsibility for women’s wear, men’s wear and children’s wear (Crewcuts).
She went where no similar brand had gone before: not just to the Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she was widely photographed on the red carpet mixing feathered ball gowns and crew-neck sweaters (and, last year, with Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner of “Girls” both channeling Ms. Lyons’s look),
but also into the pages of Vogue, and finally to New York Fashion Week itself, as J.
