J.Jill is an American womenswear retailer founded in 1955 in Massachusetts. It has been a publicly-traded company since 2017. J.Jill is headquartered in Quincy, Massachusetts.[1]
History
J.Jill was founded in the Berkshires, specifically in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, as a specialty store, by Karl Lipsky (1914—2009),[2] in 1955, which he named for his wife, Jenifer, and daughter, Jill.[3] Prior to J.Jill, Lipsky had previously founded Jenifer House, a catalog fashion retailer.[2]
In 2006, J.Jill was acquired by rival retailer The Talbots, Inc., ceasing to be a publicly traded company; Talbots topped Liz Claiborne in a "bidding war" for ownership of J. Jill, paying US$517 million for the brand.[4] Despite the high sale three years before Golden Gate Capital acquired the company for a devalued $63 million in 2009.[5]
On March 9, 2017, J.Jill again became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), trading under the ticker symbol JILL.[6] In June 2019, its shares took the biggest percentage decline since its 2017 IPO, plummeting 53.5%, which analysts blamed on design and color issues surrounding its inventory, and a premature move from its catalog model to a digital sales platform.[7]
In May 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, J.Jill donated $50,000 to First Responders First, through its J.Jill Compassion Fund, and launched a campaign for National Nurses Month, offering a shopping voucher for its newest collection to nurses, first responders, and healthcare workers.[8][9]