Whispers about the need for design change at the brand began in 2015, when Tom Mora, head of women’s design, was fired<br />and Mr. Sikhounmuong was moved up from his design role at Madewell, the hipper, younger (and growing) brand under the J.<br />On Monday, the downward spiral of the company that catapulted to trend-setting prominence on the back of Michelle Obama claimed its highest-profile head with the news<br />that Jenna Lyons, officially president and executive creative director of the brand, and unofficially its public face, would be leaving.<br />Instead, Somsack Sikhounmuong, head of women’s design, will become chief design officer,<br />with responsibility for women’s wear, men’s wear and children’s wear (Crewcuts).<br />She went where no similar brand had gone before: not just to the Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she was widely photographed on the red carpet mixing feathered ball gowns and crew-neck sweaters (and, last year, with Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner of “Girls” both channeling Ms. Lyons’s look),<br />but also into the pages of Vogue, and finally to New York Fashion Week itself, as J.<br />Ms. Lyons — tall, gangly, with a broad grin and thick-framed nerd glasses — put the human factor into generally faceless, accessible fashion.<br />Unlike Ms. Lyons, however, he will not oversee brand image, store design or marketing.
