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SPOTLIGHT ON RENA ROWAN...
By Joan Alleman Rubin

[[image - photograph of Rena Rowan]]
RENA ROWAN OF JONES NEW YORK

"Walking in to my New York office is like entering a whirlpool," said Rena Rowan, the designer for Jones New York. And as I observed her for a few hours on a typical Wednesday (she's in New York Tuesday and Wednesday, at the Jones' plant in Bristol, Pennsylvania, the other days of the week) I was inclined to agree.

Rena does not believe that design ends in the workroom. She is fanatic about fabric, fit, buttons, linings, thread color, trims. "I try for 100 per cent, knowing full well I'll get 90. But if I only tried for 90, I'd get 80."

On this particular Wednesday, one of Jones New York's big fabric suppliers is on hand with samples for the Spring '76 line. Rena, a classic Alexis Smith-beauty in black sweater, mid-calf black skirt, French boots, sits quietly in the meeting until there is a judgment to be rendered a decision to be made. When a piece of blue chino comes out of the sample case, Rena says emphatically—"Too shiny." In a flash, it disappears and another sample is passed around which each person gives the traditional little pinch between forefinger and thumb. "This has a lovely hand," says Rena, when it is her turn. Everyone seems relieved.

The Spring '76 Collection will be Rena Rowan's 22nd for Jones New York. "Five years ago when Sidney Kimmel and I started the firm, everyone told us politely we were out of our minds. But I had been designing for other people for over 20 years and I felt there was a market for simple good taste—the kind of clothes I had sewed for myself all my life because I could not afford to buy them."

That first year Rena and one assistant produced the entire line. The next year her department had grown to 11. Today there are 40 people in the design workroom in the Bristol, Pa. plant, and Jones New York is recognized as the backbone of the American sportswear market.

This phenomenal success reflects Rena Rowan's good taste. "It's a trait she was born with," says her partner Sidney Kimmel. Probably he's right. In 1951, when Glamour Magazine sponsored a "Good Taste Survey" in which each of 24,000 contestants described her favorite food, dress, the kind of apartment she would like to live in, etc., the winner was a young Polish-born girl, who was working part-time at Blum's Dept Store while attending Philadelphia's Museum School of Art. (Rena's route to Philadelphia had been circuitous. During WWII she had escaped a Siberian prison camp, served in the British army and eventually married an American officer.)

Today Rena Rowan lives in an apartment in suburban Philadelphia ("filled with plants and paintings"), not unlike the one she described in her Glamour essay many years ago. She is divorced and has four "beautiful grown-up children." As for her taste in clothes — "That hasn't changed much. I still believe in good quality, careful fit, nice detail. I've never gone in for fashion fads." Rena's favorite designers are Yves Saint Laurent and Kenzo—"although what Kenzo is, I'm not."

Rena works very hard—9:30 to 7:30 most days. Nevertheless, she considers herself lucky. "Since I've always had to work for a living, it is good to be doing something I like." If she weren't a designer, Rena says she would be a buyer — "It would be interesting to see what it's like on the other side of the fence." □