Willy Muse is an associate menswear designer for J.Crew. Over the course of our conversation, he touched on the importance of Nike Blazers, the irrelevance of special job certifications, and being in the right place at the right time. We wouldn’t have expected anything less from a wildly creative farm boy from Ames, Iowa.

Is it very common for fashion majors at state schools in Iowa to get recruited by the largest and most respected clothing designers in the world?

Every year, Iowa State University has a student-run fashion show, and we always have a guest designer. My junior year it happened to be Todd Snyder, at the time, head of men’s design for J.Crew. One of my odd jobs in college was a tailor at a bad chain store at the local mall. A friend of mine was one of the student producers for the show, and he called me around 8:30 on a Wednesday night while I was drinking a margarita on a friend’s lawn. He asked if I wanted to be the tailor for all of the clothes that Todd was bringing from J.Crew to our show. I of course agreed…

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