Blog: Jenna Lyons talks new TV show, social media fears and partying with the Obamas
Recalling how Michelle Obama's stylist [Meredith Koop] contacted J. Crew a few months before the 2013 inauguration looking for sketches for the First Lady and her daughters Sasha and Malia. "We said, 'Absolutely. Of course.' We sent tons of sketches, fabric swatches but the turnaround time was insane and they wouldn't give us measurements," Lyons said, explaining that, as a global company, the typical turnaround time was seven months or best-case scenario three months for a sample. After multiple sketches were OK'd, Lyons' team started making "all these clothes" after finding local facilities. "I couldn't tell my boss, Mickey Drexler, because he is the biggest effin chatterbox and we were sworn to secrecy. I told the head of finance, who I worked with closely, obviously, I'm going to spend $150,000 in the next three months and you can't say a word about it. I had to pay people to do stuff in New York because we don't have factories in the U.S."