HBO Max’s Stylish With Jenna Lyons: What To Know About Kyle DeFord

If you want to watch friends having the time of their lives and being creative together, STYLISH with Jenna Lyons on HBOMax is the new reality series for you. The show follows Jenna Lyons as she maneuvers her return to public life. In April 2017, Lyons left her post as president and executive creative director of J.Crew Group. She’d been with the company for her entire career, nearly thirty years. Needless to say, leaving the company was a big deal. There was a lot of pressure on what Jenna would do next. What is a woman supposed to do next after morphing a floundering catalog chain into one of the most successful fashion brands in the U.S.? Figure it out as you go and let a camera crew follow you, of course!

Jenna decided to do just that. Knowing she wanted to have a fashion/lifestyle/beauty/interiors company, something akin to Goop, she got to work. She bought the SoHo apartment beneath her own and set out converting it into an office space. And then she panicked. She needed help. She hired stylist Sarah Clary as her creative partner, and her ride-or-die, Kyle DeFord, as her chief of staff (AKA: her chief of everything).

Like Jenna, Kyle came up through J.Crew. He began as a sales associate in his hometown, Rochester, N.Y. Then he worked as a recruiter in the corporate office, a senior member of the men’s merchandising team, and finally as chief of staff to CEO Mickey Drexler. When he met Jenna, everything changed. Just over three years ago, Jenna asked Kyle to join her for breakfast. At that breakfast, Kyle says Jenna, “saw something in me I didn’t see in myself.”

Now, all this time later, Kyle and Jenna are closer than ever. They started a beauty company, LoveSeen, and are the stars of their very own show, STYLISH with Jenna Lyons. Even though Kyle’s title as chief of everything does include the occasional toilet cleaning, it is still an absolute dream come true. Or in Kyle’s words: “I’m the luckiest person in the world and couldn’t be prouder and happier to do it all with someone who encouraged me to be more myself than anyone has.” Oh, and one final word on this silly, funny, well-dressed gentleman: he has an adorable fluffy dog named Alan. Alan spends his days running around the impossibly chic New York office with his tiny friend, Jenna’s pup, Popeye. With fashion, furry friends, and free creative license, perhaps Kyle DeFord is the luckiest person in the world. 

Sources: Kyle DeFord, Stylish with Jenna Lyons