New Directions: Meet JBW's Creative Director Jessi Jacq

Photos by Jiraurd Key from New Directions: An Evening with JBW and Jessi Jacq.

If you’re a longtime JBW customer, you may have noticed a shift in the way we’ve been doing things lately. Yes, we’ve changed. We’re not just about sparkle and bling anymore – we’ve been finding new ways to shine. And we have a new Creative Director, Jessi Jacq, to lead the way.

Jessi has been sharing her vision for the new JBW since earlier this year, making her debut with the Cristal Spectra campaign. Before joining the team, she served as the Art Director of Brooklyn-based lifestyle brand Alexis Bittar. Previously, Jacq worked in magazines, with tenures at Interview Magazine, W Magazine, and Wall Street Journal. When the connection was made with JBW, she knew she’d found an opportunity to make her mark.

“I saw it as a blank canvas in the sense that it’s a company that’s growing. I’m growing, and I wanted us to grow together. I wanted to give my point of view,” she says. 

For Jessi, the brand is about creative expression just as much as it’s about luxury goods. You can see that perspective in the RESERVE Cristal campaign, her second major project with JBW. She wanted to play on the ideas of light and shadows, movement, and human connection. She carefully selected models who could embody that energy in the photographs, and create a story around the timepiece. 

“When I do campaigns for JBW, I think about the watch and create a personality around that. What person wears that - that goes hand in hand,” says Jacq. 

Community has always been at the heart of JBW, and that’s something Jessi plans to home in on in future campaigns and projects. 

“I want it to be a cool, collaborative incubator for the creative community - not just selling watches,” she says. 

To that end, JBW held a dinner honoring the new Creative Director at New York’s Canary Club on November 3. A group of stylists, press, and close collaborators of Jessi came together to raise a glass and take a sneak peek at upcoming JBW launches. The brand may be taking a new direction, but it’s keeping old friends. 

“These are people who I’m inspired to be like, I have personal relationships with, and people who have helped me along the way,” says Jacq. “It’s about community and keeping that community in mind as I build JBW.”