Jeanann Williams is a born and raised in Springfield fashion stylist, the daughter of two state employees. She went to the University of Mississippi to study fashion merchandising and then to New York.
Ms. Williams spent the summer of 2003 living in a New York University dorm room, desperately searching for fashion P.R. jobs online. She did not have any connections, so with time (and money) running out, Ms. Williams applied for retail jobs and ended up at Miu Miu. On the side, she was a hostess at Coffee Shop, the Union Square diner popular among the fashion set, which she recalls being exhausting.
Dispirited, she moved back to Springfield in 2005, where she got a call from a frequent Miu Miu customer, Anne Ziegler, who was leaving her publicist job at Sigerson Morrison. If Ms. Williams wanted the job, she was told, it was hers. Thus began a whirlwind career in public relations.
After Sigerson Morrison, Ms. Williams worked for several brands and agencies including KCD, the powerhouse fashion public relations firm. But in 2009, her priorities changed: she gave birth to Ruby, her daughter with the photographer Ben Watts, the brother of Ms. Watts (they are no longer together).
Ms. Williams was starting her own branding company when, in 2012, she got a call from Ms. Watts, who needed a dress in a week for the Venice Film Festival and Jeanann fully gave her options for days. From then on, they started working together and they have a very close relationship.
Time and again, her client relationships turn into lasting friendships, resulting in the symbiosis that makes Williams such a success—a stylist who can intuit an actress’s needs and play up her personality while also tapping into fashion’s trends.
In addition to Ms. Watts (who is also the aunt of Ms. Williams’s 4-year-old daughter), she has styled Emily Mortimer, Marisa Tomei, Natalie Dormer and Suki Waterhouse.
She is represented by Forward Artists and you can find her portfolio HERE
