I don’t have a problem saying that I pretty much love everything with a J. Crew label on it. Do I trawl the site waiting for stuff to go on sale? No. Do I check the sale page maybe once a week? Sometimes. Did I get more than one J. Crew gift card for Christmas? Yes.
So, I just want to step away from the fan girl for a second and give the J. Crew marketing genius that came up with the No. 2 Pencil Skirt a huge, immense round of word applause. J. Crew has always sold pencil skirts. Always. Until last fall, they were just called pencil skirts and that was that. Then some absolute genius, perhaps someone who has spent a lot of time in Anthropologie or who reads a lot of lifestyle blogs, decided to rename one of the most basic staples of the adult female closet. The No. 2 Pencil Skirt! Yes! The name combines the weird fetishy notion of taking something ordinary and making it precious and twee with the rabid obsession with fall and school supplies. It’s like somehow embedding the movie You’ve Got Mail in every skirt hanging from the rack.
The skirt comes in double-serge cotton, three kinds of tweed (basket-weave, tinsel and vintage), leopard-print, corduroy, wool crepe and something called “shimmer.” I’ve bought two already. Long-legged girls with naturally high-lighted, slightly mussy hair hop through the catalog in these skirts, pairing them with Sperry Top-Siders, pointy heels, loafers and ballet flats on the bottom and Anjelica Huston silk blouses and cashmere pullovers on top. They look like fun librarians — Party Girls of the 2010s.
The rebranding of this skirt is perfect. It’s neither so twee as to be insulting or eye-roll-inducing, like an Anthropologie catalog, nor is it so bland as to be in Anne Klein territory. I love it. I think it’s genius and I want at least five more.
