 "They get paid to have a catalogue-perfect summer")
One morning last month, the ferry from Hyannis, Massachusetts, to Nantucket Island carried sun-hatted tourists, seasonal labourers and two young blond British women who were three weeks into what was quite possibly the best summer of their lives.
Fee Meynell and Ella Crockett plopped their bags down for the one-and-a-half-hour ride. Meynell, 23, was lively and talkative. Crockett, 21, was conserving her energy, having recently spent four days sick in bed.
Meynell and Crockett are "Seasonnaires", the term the British clothing company Jack Wills uses for its summertime brand ambassadors. They had been chosen from 3,000 applicants and sent for two months in a location with a Jack Wills shop; for Crockett, it was Nantucket, for Meynell, Martha's Vineyard.
Meynell recalled that as a teenager she had a poster in her bedroom of Jack Wills Seasonnaires jumping up and down in front of a lighthouse. Her relationship with "Jack", as she called the brand, had been "very fan-girly".
"I probably took it quite far," she said. "I'd go out in Jack Wills pajamas."
Jack Wills is still little-known in America, one of those preppyish brands like Vineyard Vines or Kiel James Patrick that's a shared secret among the boat-shoe crowd from Annapolis, Maryland, to Kennebunkport, Maine.
But in Britain, it has been popular for years. At the suburban London high school that Meynell attended, the cool kids wore Jack Wills hoodies, crews and chinos. Crockett, who also grew up in suburban London and has modelled for Jack Wills, nodded in agreement, saying: "At my school, you put your lunch in a blue-and-pink Jack Wills bag. You wanted the bedding. You wanted the knickers. You were obsessed."
Both remembered fawning over the brand's catalogues, which, like those of Abercrombie & Fitch, feature attractive young men and women cavorting at sporting events or falling into bed in their underwear, post-pillow fight. (The imagery in the spring 2016 catalogue - and its winking promotional copy about "midnight mischief" - led it to be banned by the Advertising Standards Authority, a British media watchdog.)
On the ferry ride, both women wore the brand they have been relentlessly promoting. The partying and brand promotion doesn't end at the bar. "We have so much alcohol in the house," Crockett said. When Meynell and Crockett were selected for the Seasonnaire programme, they were sent for training at Jack Wills's London headquarters, where they met with co-founder and chief executive Pete Williams.
Now 42, Williams, who is British, started the brand at 24, when he had already realised, he said, that his best years were behind him. Jack Wills was about capturing (or recapturing) the rush of college and post-college youth.
The job of a Jack Wills Seasonnaire involves going out to bars, beaches and restaurants, meeting lots of people and spreading the word about Jack in the friendliest, most organic way possible. So far, in an expansion push into America begun in 2010, the brand has opened stores in wealthy enclaves and university towns on the East Coast like Westport, Connecticut, and Boston. Seasonnaires also work in the stores and organise promotional parties like the Croquet and Cocktails event that was held at the Chatham Bars Inn.
Fee Meynell and Ella Crockett plopped their bags down for the one-and-a-half-hour ride. Meynell, 23, was lively and talkative. Crockett, 21, was conserving her energy, having recently spent four days sick in bed.
Meynell and Crockett are "Seasonnaires", the term the British clothing company Jack Wills uses for its summertime brand ambassadors. They had been chosen from 3,000 applicants and sent for two months in a location with a Jack Wills shop; for Crockett, it was Nantucket, for Meynell, Martha's Vineyard.
Meynell recalled that as a teenager she had a poster in her bedroom of Jack Wills Seasonnaires jumping up and down in front of a lighthouse. Her relationship with "Jack", as she called the brand, had been "very fan-girly".
"I probably took it quite far," she said. "I'd go out in Jack Wills pajamas."
Jack Wills is still little-known in America, one of those preppyish brands like Vineyard Vines or Kiel James Patrick that's a shared secret among the boat-shoe crowd from Annapolis, Maryland, to Kennebunkport, Maine.
But in Britain, it has been popular for years. At the suburban London high school that Meynell attended, the cool kids wore Jack Wills hoodies, crews and chinos. Crockett, who also grew up in suburban London and has modelled for Jack Wills, nodded in agreement, saying: "At my school, you put your lunch in a blue-and-pink Jack Wills bag. You wanted the bedding. You wanted the knickers. You were obsessed."
Both remembered fawning over the brand's catalogues, which, like those of Abercrombie & Fitch, feature attractive young men and women cavorting at sporting events or falling into bed in their underwear, post-pillow fight. (The imagery in the spring 2016 catalogue - and its winking promotional copy about "midnight mischief" - led it to be banned by the Advertising Standards Authority, a British media watchdog.)
On the ferry ride, both women wore the brand they have been relentlessly promoting. The partying and brand promotion doesn't end at the bar. "We have so much alcohol in the house," Crockett said. When Meynell and Crockett were selected for the Seasonnaire programme, they were sent for training at Jack Wills's London headquarters, where they met with co-founder and chief executive Pete Williams.
Now 42, Williams, who is British, started the brand at 24, when he had already realised, he said, that his best years were behind him. Jack Wills was about capturing (or recapturing) the rush of college and post-college youth.
The job of a Jack Wills Seasonnaire involves going out to bars, beaches and restaurants, meeting lots of people and spreading the word about Jack in the friendliest, most organic way possible. So far, in an expansion push into America begun in 2010, the brand has opened stores in wealthy enclaves and university towns on the East Coast like Westport, Connecticut, and Boston. Seasonnaires also work in the stores and organise promotional parties like the Croquet and Cocktails event that was held at the Chatham Bars Inn.
© 2016 The New York Times