Even Michelle Obama couldn’t save J Crew.
The first lady’s preferred retailer cut 175 full-time positions from its corporate headquarters in New York, the company announced in a press release on Wednesday.
The announcement came just hours after Racked.com reported that J Crew laid off 10% of the staff at its New York City headquarters, asking the dismissed employees to leave immediately.
“We are making meaningful and strategic changes across our organization to better position us for future growth. While many of these decisions were difficult, they are necessary,” said Millard Drexler, J Crew chairman and CEO.
Last week, J Crew reported that its sales decreased 5% to $508.7m in the first quarter of 2015. According to the Huffington Post, Drexler attributed the drop in sales to the stores stocking the wrong sweaters – too many of the unpopular Tilly and too few of the in-demand Tippi.
“One-third of our business is a mix of both knits and sweaters,” Drexler said. “The amount of the business is big enough to impact the negative comps in the company.”
In addition to announcing the elimination of the 175 positions, J Crew announced the appointments of Somsack Sikhounmuong as the new head of women’s design for the J Crew brand and Joyce Lee as the head of women’s design for Madewell. Both will report to Jenna Lyons, president and executive creative director of J Crew group.
Sikhounmuong, who has been with J Crew Group since 2001, will replace Tom Mora. Mora will be leaving the company.
“With Somsack in his new role, we will continue to focus on making critical improvements to our J Crew women’s assortment including fit, design aesthetic and styling,” said Drexler. “We know what needs to be done and while many of these initiatives take time, we have a committed team in place to make it happen.”
J.Crew is a private company, owned by TPG Capital and Leonard Green & Partners as of 2011. Requests for comment were referred back to J Crew.
