Location: Scotland
At the beginning of the season, we create mood boards that includes patterns and colors. For spring and summer ’21 we drew inspo from Plein Soleil, the original Talented Mr. Ripley. Both movies have incredible style and lots of inspiration, mood, color to pull from. In keeping with the French theme, we looked at Cousteau documentaries and pulled lots of inspiration from his style and crew without going Wes Anderson for the other J. Crew brand, Wallace and Barnes. We loved the whole workers at sea theme.
Me and this guy Dan, we both came up with the whole concept. The challenge is in pushing creativity forward when you know what sells. Everyone can look at these mood boards and design into them so the directions have the same point of view. Someone who’s doing swim can see the patterns and colors that we chose.
I’m the Senior Director of Men’s Design at J. Crew. I set the design direction for my categories, which is all of wovens and accessories for mens. Wovens includes all sweatpants, outerwear, shorts, accessories and footwear. T-shirts and sweaters are not in that category. I manage the other designers reporting to me in these categories as well.
WORK DURING COVID-19
Right now we’re doing a lot of Zoom meetings. I basically wake up and feed my daughter, Bo, get her settled and then start talking to people at work. We use Slack between the teams and then Zoom meetings when we have to talk to merchandise and production when we need to speak to five or more people, which I hate. I’m so sick and tired of being on video conferencing calls. You just have to sit there in one place. The sound is not like a phone. It’s very choppy. I was on it with 35 people the other day. It was terrible. But I do think companies are going to realize they can do a lot remotely and be more open to people working from home. You don’t need as much office space.
This pandemic landed during a time when everything was designed already. Going into fall, it’s going to be super challenging. You can do it electronically – just won’t include the texture, you can’t see things as clearly, you have to describe things better.
During the financial crisis, we did really well. This feels very different. J Crew was still that aesthetic without that logo. People shopping super high-end could kind of buy luxury stuff but not for Louis Vuitton prices. Our business surged. Michelle Obama would say, ‘I’m saving money. This is J.Crew.’ And people started looking at J.Crew. Even the rich budgeted and when they did, instead of spending ten grand, they spent five grand. We were one of the brands that did really well. So [this pandemic] is way different. It’s pretty scary actually. There’s a certain amount of sales we need to do just to hit the bottom line. It’s hard to be optimistic just realistically speaking.
I’m worried about everybody’s jobs, not just my own. I’ve been here so long at the company – it’s like a family. Someone died from the Coronavirus today. She was the sweetest lady. You don’t believe it can happen to you but it’s out there.
SPENDING TIME IN QUARANTINE
It’s been a full three weeks since we left [New York] City. We didn’t want to be stuck there. We don’t have a car there. We felt vulnerable and my sister has a summer cottage house on the lake in New Hampshire. We just knew it would be better to contain ourselves up in the woods across the lake. You’ll see a car drive by every three hours so it’s pretty remote.
I also thought leaving would help out the people in my apartment building by spreading out and social distancing. We live in such a touristy neighborhood and we live a block away from this gigantic posh mall in Battery Park. And there were so many Europeans and tourists right before we left. We did our best to stay away from people but it just wasn’t working. It’s just too crowded and people weren’t taking it seriously.
Out here in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, we’ve been able to take Bo out on the lake and on a canoe. Bo’s been making mud pies. I realize not too many people can do that and I feel really fortunate that my sister had this house. We wanted to come here for at least two weeks before we saw my mom who lives like 40 minutes away. We still don’t know if it’s right to go over there yet. We just want to be 100 percent in the clear.
Like everyone else in the world, we’ve been watching Tiger King on Netflix. We’ve also been cooking so much. We’ve been going all out. We made fish tacos tonight – fried fish with panko crumbs. We did a beer batter and sprinkled the crumbs. And we made some fried onion rings. We’ve also made chili. We’ve been making things that kind of take all day to do. But it’s been good. We’re trying to manage how to make the food last two weeks in trying to get rid of all the perishables.
FAVORITE TRAVEL DESTINATION
I travel so much for work. When it came down to non-work destinations, I don’t usually want to get on a plane. When I did have free time for vacation I usually just came up here to New Hampshire. Right now we’re on a lake at my sister’s house but I’d also go to my mom’s house which is on a bay with access to the ocean. It’s a similar landscape, but at my mom’s you can get oysters, clams and fish over there.
For work I actually go to places that people would go to as tourists like Tokyo, London and Paris. I like going to London probably the best because I have so many friends there. Most of the time I’ll just eat and go to the pubs there. A lot of people in this industry are British. Through networking I’ve become very close to people In London. I know a lot of people hate London for food but I like all the restaurants there. The Indian food is really good there. I also like English style breakfast. Fish and chips are also a favorite of mine.
FAVORITE TRAVEL ACCESSORIES
Anker battery is probably the best battery. It’s a little on the heavy side but it charges four cell phones. You can take it all the way to London and back, and not have to plug in your phone.
I pack so light, like unbelievably light. I just bring T-shirts and underwear and that’s it. And I pack and separate them in SEA to summit stack and packs with the cordura fabric. And they’re great because it keeps everything super organized. I don’t need a lot of leather trim or anything like that. These are durable and abrasive proof. I’ve had these bags for eight years and still use them.
The type of bag I carry varies if I have to travel for work. I’ll bring a big roller bag if I have to travel for production. I try to avoid roller bags – they’re so slow and clunky. Otherwise, I use the North Face Base Camp Duffel Bag. It’s my go-to bag. It’s a weekend size bag. I think it’s like a 40-liter bag. Another thing I like is that it has the duffel bag straps and the backpack straps. They’re made out of like a rubberized canvas so it’s rainproof – not waterproof. But it’s super light and super durable.
ON THE HORIZON
Inspirational travel in the near future looks really far away. But I am guessing if we do travel it will be for production and that will be China, Italy, but most likely Central America.
I definitely see some silver linings in all of this. I think most people have focused on parents and grandparents a lot more and acknowledging the vulnerability of life in general. I think we were getting too far away from things that weren’t real like nature. But I’m definitely getting cabin fever and constantly around kids. Alone time would be pretty nice.
— Eric Hernon to TBW