Hypothetically Creating JCrew's Western Collection
yee haw!
Disclaimer: None of these images are my own, but all graphics are made by me. All of this is hypothetical and coming from my chaotic brand obsessed brain. I am creating this campaign as if I was a part of the JCrew team and was tasked on the art direction for the brand’s new collection, which I also made up.
Welcome back to Digital Branding! This episode we’re talking JCrew. In my opinion, JCrew has had one of the best re-brands of the past decade, largely thanks to Olympia Gayot.
jcrew is channeling their old look in a modern way
Before I talk about my idea, let’s discuss what JCrew has been doing recently, and how it inspired my vision. Most recently, JCrew brought back their catalogue after years on hiatus. They paired this comeback with a corresponding catalogue collection. The imagery was absolutely stunning and a vibe I really wanted to stay true to when it came to creating a hypothetical collection of my own. see here.
the brand also coupled the catalogue with their own JCrew Newsstand
The addition of this pop up also really inspired me. I love how it is designed. open to the public. accessible. and so so beautiful. see here.
my campaign: JCrew’s Western Collection
I personally love western wear and I think the sentiment is shared by many other fashion lovers! Brands are starting to pick up on this, for example, Elwood’s recent western themed drop ‘Western Plains‘ sold out their most sought after pieces within 7 minutes! Insane! see the collection here.
At the beginning of September, MANGO also dropped their own very popular western collection. see the collection here.
My point is, the consumer want for western wear is higher than you may think, and being that this is something JCrew has yet to explore, this aesthetic could be a really great opportunity to do something fun/out of the box while still keeping it quintessentially “JCrew”.
Here are some moodboards so you can get a better idea on the vibes i’m thinking of for a western collection, JCrew style:
I want to combine two sides of the western aesthetic here: First, the hard gritty cowboy side, you typically think of, and second, the softer side. Think farmers markets, vintage cars, head scarfs, running through fields, bouquets wrapped in brown paper, cozy farmhouses, etc.
The announcement
For this announcement I wanted to take inspiration from what JCrew did with their recent Butter Yellow Collection, where they posted a lot of ambiguous yellow imagery (sometimes literally) before officially announcing the collection. see here.
I wanted to emulate something similar for my western collection…
thinking something like this would be great at encapsulating the hard side of the western aesthetic while still being chic and editorial. (I would love to see the hat, bag, jeans, and boots have a sneaky engraved JCrew logo somewhere.)
Here are some more images that I think would be great for the softer western side!
The pop up
Like I mentioned before I was a huge fan of JCrew’s catalogue pop up. I would love to create a very similar rendition for this collection. here’s a reminder of the previous pop up.
Instead of a Newsstand, I would love to create a JCrew Farmers Market. here is my vision.
I imagine an announcement for the pop up to be similar to the picture of the engraved butter on the bottom left. witty, cool, and fun.
For the actual pop up itself, I imagine it to be extremely similar to their newsstand, just repurposed as a farmers market, showcasing the new collection, more copies of the catalogue (with images from the new collection inside), and handing out flowers wrapped in brown paper and multiple flavors of lemonade!
I could also imagine a small Photo Booth next to the Farmers Market. Think the Dairy Boy Pop Up that happened during fashion week.
Collaborations
In terms of any collaborations I would love to see JCrew giving out some Lil Sweet Treat candy at the Farmers Market as well!
That’s it for this episode! I truly had so much fun creating this one. I’ll see you when we reimagine the next brand! What should we do next?
xx taylor
This is so cool I love it all! Especially the photos the hard western side - those are so good without making it so literal. It all ties together so nicely I’m obsessed.
I love this! Totally could see them doing this and it would be awesome!