5 minutes and 5 news nuggets (New stores! A Manolo Blahnik collab!) with J.Crew’s Jenna Lyons and Tom Mora

Early yesterday at the jam-packed J.Crew Fall presentation, I got a peek at what the mega brand was planning. In and amongst the delicious layered, multicoloured looks, I found out some little newsy nuggets that I’m sure you will be thrilled about:

1. J.Crew will open three new Canadian locations in 2012: Vancouver, Edmonton, and Toronto Eaton Centre, all three of which will carry both womenswear and menswear. There will also be a specialty menswear shop coming down the pipe.

2. The brand is collaborating with Manolo Blahnik for Fall: Says Tom: “We’re huge fans of Manolo Blahnik and they are actually big fans of ours! We did these beautiful shoes with them, creating new fabrics for our classic BB Pump. We were able to use our own fabrics and patterns, and some of the colours are exclusive to the season as well. We’re super excited about that.”

3. Fall’s all about Irving Penn: Says Tom: “He was at Vogue for over 60 years and his photographs are timeless and elegant. That’s the message I tried to put into the collection. These pieces are super chic and they’re clothes that you can have forever.”

4. Jenna doesn’t know about any special sauce: Though she’s widely heralded for making J.Crew the covetable brand that it is today, Jenna says: “I wish I knew the secret sauce, I would jar it and sell it, but I think the thing that makes us unique is that you can actually buy the clothes. A lot of what comes down the runway is either really expensive or never actually gets made, so you can fall in love with something but then that thing isn’t necessarily available. Every single thing that we put out there will be made.”

5. Jenna on the brand’s classic layering aesthetic: “This is inspiration for how you can wear it. This is how we’d wear it and how we love it, so hopefully we can give you new inspiration for how to wear something you already own, or inspire you to buy something new.”

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