Alumna Styles The Stars In Couture
This story was reprinted with permission of the Ole Miss Alumni Review.
Meeting an A-list actress for a wardrobe fitting, contacting top couture designers to get pieces from their latest collections, attending a magazine photo shoot and boarding a plane
to London for a film premiere are all in a typical day’s work for Jeanann Williams (BSFCS 03), stylist for actress Naomi Watts.
“I don’t know if you can ever really envision where you’ll be, but that’s what is so fun about it,” says Williams. “I’m always waiting for the next job to come through and stay abreast of everything just because I truly love it. I’m proud of what I do. It’s a really fun, passionate, exciting industry, and I’m lucky to be in it.”
A native of Springfield, Ill., Williams was unsure about where she wanted to receive her college education. She knew she needed a change and started applying to schools across the country.
Williams graduated from high school in 1999 and enrolled at Ole Miss the following fall to major in fashion merchandising.
“I always knew I wanted to study fashion, and there’s definitely fashion in Mississippi,” she says. “I found that women in the South love to be women and, of course, dress up for football games.”
Williams enjoyed her time in Oxford, moving in to the second floor of Martin her freshman year and becoming a member of Delta Delta Delta Sorority.
“When I met all of the girls from Oxford, they just took me in right away,” says Williams. “I made friends for life, and everyone was so welcoming and loving. Oxford is a very beautiful, special place that gives you that true college experience everyone wants. There’s definitely destiny to your path, and I can’t imagine not having Ole Miss as part of my story and part of who I am.”
New York State Of Mind
During her studies, Williams took advantage of the many internship opportunities the program had to offer, spending time abroad in London and Australia. However, it was a trip to New York City that truly made an impact.
“I took one trip to New York with our fashion merchandising group, and that was it,” says Williams. “I always knew the next step would be to move there to truly follow a career in fashion.”
After graduating from Ole Miss in 2003, Williams made the move to Manhattan and quickly found herself in a fast-paced environment full of hopeful young graduates longing to break into the industry.
“When I first moved to New York, I moved into the dorms at New York University because it was the easiest transition,” says Williams. “You can live there for the summer, and it’s affordable. It was really hard because I didn’t know that many people, and none of the jobs I applied for were panning out.”
Longing for a job in fashion public relations, Williams knew her time in New York City was limited if she didn’t find a job before the end of the summer.
“My parents were not going to keep paying for me to live there without a job and told me I was going to have to come back home,” she says. “The week my place at the dorm was up, I starting applying for retail jobs just to keep me in the city, and I got a job at Catherine Malandrino. I worked there for a week before I was recruited to work for Miu Miu in SoHo.”
After working in sales at Miu Miu for more than a year, Williams briefly moved back home to Illinois to decide how passionate she truly was about pursuing a career in fashion.
The rigors of luxury sales proved to be tough, but after spending two months back home, she knew she belonged in the Big Apple.
“I think that’s when you figure out what you really love,” says Williams. “You have to leave it to know how much you love it. I knew I had to go back, but I just wasn’t sure how to work it out.”
Williams soon came upon the opportunity to obtain her dream job working in fashion public relations for luxury shoe and accessory designer Sigerson Morrison.
“I received an email around Christmas that one of my clients at Miu Miu who did fashion PR for Sigerson Morrison was leaving her job. I said, ‘Oh my gosh, who’s taking your job?’ and she told me she was sure her boss would hire me.”
Perfect Fit
From there, Williams’ career in fashion took off. After landing the job with Sigerson Morrison, she boarded a plane and moved in with close friend and fellow Ole Miss alumna Laura Reid (BSJ 03).
“She let me stay with her for a couple of months while I got on my feet,” says Williams. “I’ve been here ever since.”
Reid, interior designer with Own Entity in Brooklyn, has enjoyed watching Williams’ career evolve over the years.
“I think when we moved here, she was always sort of the poster girl for the fashion world,” says Reid. “That was her drive. She was always driven and had such grand goals for herself. Once she moved back, I feel like things really just started to fall into place for her.”
And fall into place they did. Williams worked her way up in the fashion industry doing fashion PR for various companies before landing a top-notch position in 2010 with KCD, an international fashion and luxury marketing services and production agency.
“I got to what I would say is the top,” she says. “Going to Milan and Paris, working alongside amazing brands, working with Alexander Wang, Isabel Marant, Bottega Veneta and producing fashion shows with Victoria’s Secret. KCD produces all of the best shows, parties and events. I had an amazing job in PR, but it was really taxing.”
After contemplating different avenues she could pursue within the industry, Williams’ career took an unexpected turn.
“I was going to start my own company, and then Naomi Watts asked me to style her.”
Dynamic Duo
Williams met Watts through her brother, Ben Watts, photographer and father to Williams’ young daughter, Ruby.
“Ben and I met at a Gap fashion event during New York Fashion Week in September 2006,” says Williams. “On our first date, he took me to dinner with Naomi and [her partner, actor] Liev [Schreiber]. That’s how I met Naomi.”
Williams’ career took off after dressing Watts for the internationally acclaimed Venice Film Festival in 2012. With little to go on other than contacts she made in the PR world, Williams dove right in, gathering different looks for Watts to choose from.
“It was definitely fake it until you make it, so I wrote all of my friends who are editors, asking for contacts at Jimmy Choo and this and that,” says Williams. “They immediately sent me a list of about 25 people, and I was able to send her dresses and shoes. She ended up wearing Marchesa and looked gorgeous.
Around the same time, her film “The Impossible” (2012) was coming out, so within the next couple of weeks, I went with her to Toronto. All of a sudden, I was a full-time stylist.”
Having watched Williams grow through the years, Reid knew that transitioning from PR to styling would be a perfect match for her friend.
“She did PR for so long, but anyone who knows her can see that she’s always had such an amazing sense of style,” says Reid. “She is so good at putting anything and everything together for an event and has always had this sort of easy chicness to her.”
August 2014 will mark two years since Williams started styling Watts, and she couldn’t be happier with her newfound career.
“We’re very good friends, like sisters,” Williams says. “I travel with her everywhere, so it’s great to be able to share special moments with her and be at all of her premieres. It’s a great fit in my life. I absolutely love styling and truly have a passion for it.”
Daughter Ruby, Williams’ unofficial assistant, seems to have a passion for fashion just like her sophisticated mom.
“She likes to layer on the jewels and try on all the shoes,” Williams says laughing. “It’s quite cute. We recently went to a Ralph Lauren children’s fashion show. She had on her fanciest dress and said, ‘Mommy, I’m just wearing a cardigan and this purse.’ She even had a little star ring and headband on like ‘this is my fashion show look.’”
It’s important for Williams to stay passionate about styling as she may dress Watts in five different outfits in one day for press events, in addition to dressing other clients including actresses Emily Mortimer, Natalie Dormer and Suki Waterhouse.
She says that the best part of her job is being able to work so intimately with the ladies she styles.
“I get to work closely with all of these amazing women and celebrate and support them,” Williams says. “They’re truly outstanding and inspiring women.”
While she enjoys her work, styling is at times a hectic profession filled with extreme highs and lows. In an industry where everyone is a critic and best and worst dressed lists abound, it’s important to have thick skin and take the good with the bad.
“You get different reviews, but the only one I care about at the end of the day comes from the person I’m dressing,” says Williams. “I guess that’s my most important job is making them feel really confident. It’s always great to be recognized on a best dressed list, but you also remember you’re only as good as your last job.”
Best Dressed
As it turns out, Williams is quite good at her job, having recently made The Hollywood Reporter’s 25 Most Powerful Stylists list for the second year in a row, a coveted list that profiles the industry’s top stylists.
“Where she is in her career now seems like that thing that we were all sort of waiting to happen,” Reid says. “It makes perfect sense. It’s been really exciting to see her grow, not only because she’s so good at what she does but also the notoriety that’s come with it. It’s like she’s blossomed into herself.”
It seems the sky is the limit for Williams and her styling career as she continues to charge forward in an industry that’s constantly changing and in a city with endless opportunities.
“I would definitely like to take on more clients,” says Williams. “I also want to style men, films and work more on a consultancy level for designers’ collections. I may even want to start my own line at some point. There’s definitely a lot more to come … that I’m sure of.”
By Annie Rhoades
This story was reprinted with permission from the Ole Miss Alumni Review. The Alumni Review is published quarterly for members of the Ole Miss Alumni Association. Join or renew your membership with the Alumni Association today, and don’t miss a single issue.
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