Feature
John C. Jay
The New Chapter
TEXT BY VALERIE DEMICHEVA
PHOTOGRAPH BY BEN CLARK
As the celebrated former Wieden+Kennedy Global Executive
Creative Director, John C. Jay has become known for an immersive approach to advertising. He delves into culture rather than
merely observing it, and supports emerging artists who carry
that torch, sponsoring artists’ studios inside The Yale Union
building through his independent company, Studio J.
Jay has won over one hundred and fifty international
awards for his ad work, but as he humbly attests: “With all
due respect, I was never only an ad guy, or a fashion guy. It
was always my passion to seek the widest and deepest creative
experience possible…”
Just over a year into his new role at Fast Retailing Co., Uniqlo’s
holding company, Jay continues to seek deep creative experience
and fuels Uniqlo’s brand and value propositions with a bouquet
of dreamy collaborations, concepts, and of course, products.
How has your customary immersion in unfamiliar cultures influenced your recent work for Fast Retailing?
My past year at Fast Retailing has been an intense initiation into
UNIQLO’s own culture—setting up offices in Portland, Oregon,
the Fast Retailing Creative Lab, and an office in Tokyo’s Midtown
Towers. I travel to our other regions around the world, whether
inside the USA, China, or Europe, with our founder and CEO,
50
Tadashi Yanai, to check in on our cultural and business growth in
each of these regions. Fast Retailing has cultivated generations
of creative thinking and making. Virtually no Japanese corporation could ever offer such freedom, but early on you realize this
means that it is about our responsibility to inspire each other,
regardless of any organizational structure.
Where do you find inspiration?
I work very hard at this. It was never the responsibility of the
empl