An image from the Jones New York fall campaign, starring model Carolyn Murphy. The brand hired a former Vogue editor to lend extra style cred to its clothes. The result is traditional pieces with fashion-forward details.
In 1925, Coco Chanel revolutionized women's wear by creating the Chanel suit, her classic collarlessjacket– and-skirt combination. That inspired ensemble gave the women of her day – long encumbered by corsets and other restrictive garments – not only more freedom over their bodies, but over their workwear as well.
Since then, the paths of high fashion and office clothes have rarely if ever crossed, with ready-to-wear designers often sacrificing practicality on the altar of edge and allure (it is hard to imagine this season's slouchy knit pants by Marc Jacobs, for instance, in a boardroom setting). Many working women today, however, want a dose of all three, prompting a number of iconic professional brands to attempt to jazz up their lines. One way: enlisting fashion-forward types – editors and runway stars – to lead their in-house design teams.
A case in point is Brooks Brothers, the ultra-preppy heritage brand best known for its suits, ties and dress shirts. This summer, it hired Zac Posen, best known for glamorous evening gowns worn by celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Reese Witherspoon, as its creative director of women's fashion. Posen's first pieces for Brooks Brothers won't appear in stores until 2016, but his appointment suggests a desire by the label to achieve the same kind of success experienced by fast-fashion brands that have partnered with big-name designers on capsule collections, giving themselves haute credentials in the process. (To name only a few such collabos, both Karl Lagerfeld and Donatella Versace have teamed up with H&M, Christopher Kane has lent his talents to Topshop and Joseph Altuzarra partnered with Target on a collection this fall.)
Jones New York, meanwhile, hired former fashion editor Wendy Hirschberg Clurman as its fashion director in 2012. The appointment signalled a shift for the company, which had built its reputation on offering working women an alternative to high-priced designer pieces. Hirschberg Clurman joined Jones New York after a career in magazines, including Seventeen (where she worked in the accessories department) and, most recently, Vogue (where she was senior market editor). In that latter role, it was Hirschberg Clurman's job to translate catwalk trends for readers. Her role at Jones New York is not dissimilar. "My time [at Vogue] taught me how to edit," she said during an interview with Globe Style earlier this year. "Being able to strip away what isn't necessary, create a concise story and speak to a certain type of woman is what I did at Vogue and what I still do for Jones New York."
By tapping the fashion-world elite, brands such as Brooks Brothers and Jones New York are likely to shift the perspective of those who still associate the term "businesswoman" with Melanie Griffith's Working Girl character, immortalized in the ill-fitting suits and scuffed sneakers that became emblematic, until fairly recently, of the office uniform. These companies aren't aiming, however, for total reinvention. Rather, their design teams are being tasked with merging the fashion-forward with the familiar, with what women still seek them out for: polish and respectability.
"Today," Hirschberg Clurman says, "women want to be relevant but not necessarily trendy." In other words, the core values of Jones New York haven't changed. Customers can just expect some extra-stylish design details (an asymmetrical zipper on a pencil skirt or leather pockets and trim on a boxy cardigan, for instance) over the coming years.