Jenny LeRoux on Launching a Fashion Label at 80 and Refusing to Disappear

Every so often I come across a woman who makes me want to sit up a little straighter, and Jenny LeRoux is one of them. At 85, she is the founder, designer, and (yes) model for JLR, the Cape Town label she launched after selling Habits, the boutique she ran for 35 years. Most of us would have taken that sale as our cue to finally put our feet up. Jenny tried it, found it boring, and noticed something the fashion world had missed entirely: almost no one was designing for women in their 70s and 80s. So, she did. Her pieces are true classics, made locally in small runs, and she stands in front of the camera every week to show us exactly how they look on a real woman her age. I think you’ll find her as refreshingly frank as I did.

Career, Reinvention & Launching JLR

You’ve had more than one act in fashion. From the Fair Lady fashion desk to 35 years running Habits, to founding JLR. What does reinvention after 50 actually feel like in your 80’s?

To begin with, it was daunting — but far better than not being creative. I don’t really call it reinvention; I’d call it a new chapter. I know it sounds a bit ancient to say at my age, but I have so many years of knowing what women want — why not use it? For me it was less a new invention and more just carrying on.

I never trained as a designer — everything I built came from finding people better than me at the technical parts. So JLR wasn’t a brave, planned act — it was the only thing that made sense. I still love clothes the way I did at twenty, and modelling my own collection every week says one thing: you don’t stop. Nothing’s impossible.

You sold Habits just before turning 80, thinking you’d finally slow down, but started JLR instead. What made you go all in again rather than stepping back?

Sheer boredom, if I’m honest. I tried slowing down, and it simply didn’t suit me. But then I noticed something no one else seemed to be addressing — there was nothing genuinely made for women in their 70s and 80s. That gap was the whole opportunity. So, reinvention became the name of the game, and once I saw that clearly, it was really just a matter of gathering the nerve and getting on with it.

What’s one thing about starting a business again at 80 that surprised you?

Honestly, how much I had to be the one wearing the clothes. I wasn’t making a statement — I was selling to women my own age, and there was no one else who could show them how a piece would actually sit on a body like theirs. That turned out to be a matter of me modelling – not used to it, not easy.

The other surprise was simply how much the world had changed digitally since I last built something from scratch. Going from the very start of e-commerce to now shaped by things like artificial intelligence — that shift alone has been remarkable to watch, let alone keep pace with at 85.

Looking back at a career that started on film sets in your childhood and wound through fashion editing and decades of running your own boutique, is there a thread that connects it all?

If I’m honest, it goes back further than fashion editing — it starts with being a child on film sets, surrounded by elegant women, loosely educated but absorbing something about how women present themselves long before I had a word for it. I left school at 15, so nothing about my career came from training. It came from watching, and later from doing.

The thread, if there is one, is that I’ve never really worked for fashion — I’ve worked in service of women. At Fair Lady, it started as reviewing books, but once I landed in the fashion department, what stayed with me wasn’t the clothes themselves so much as the people — the shoots, the colleagues, the laughter. Habits came from the same place: there simply wasn’t affordable, stylish South African fashion available, and I wanted to give women something they couldn’t find. Thirty-five years of that, built by finding gifted seamstresses and amazing designers.

And JLR now is the same instinct in a different decade — modelling the clothes myself at 85 because women my age have essentially disappeared from fashion imagery, and I wanted to put myself back in the frame. So, the thread isn’t really fashion. It’s women — dressing them, seeing them, and now, quite literally, being one they can see.

The JLR Philosophy & Classics

JLR is built around what you call “true classics.” How do you decide what earns a permanent place in a woman’s closet versus what’s just a passing trend?

To me, the idea of classics is really about clothes that don’t go out of style — as opposed to the sort of fashion that comes and goes. Ralph Lauren comes to mind. My rule for anything I’m not certain about — a trend piece especially — is simple: if you’re not sure, don’t. A true classic never asks that question of you in the first place.

Your pieces are made locally in Cape Town in small monthly runs, with a clear no-fast-fashion stance. What led you to build the brand around quality and longevity instead of volume?

It was never really a stance — it’s just the honest size of the business. Garments are made as orders come in, and I buy fabric based on my own confidence in a style, not the other way round. Compared to what I used to run, this is seriously small — a handful of people, not a huge operation with all that responsibility. It’s me, my second-in-command Dee, a few seamstresses each with her own specialty, and a driver on call.

The clothes themselves follow the same thinking — classic, timeless pieces that work across ages: crisp white shirts, black and navy separates, the little black dress, plenty of cotton. I’ve never been interested in chasing a trend. My rule has always been simple: if you’re not sure, don’t. Quality and longevity were never a marketing decision — they’re just what happens when a business is built by hand, by people, rather than at scale.

Tell us about the Travelling Range.  What does “a range that really works for all ages” mean to you in practice?

The Travelling Range came directly out of my own travelling experience. I knew the pitfalls firsthand, so I built the solution I actually needed. The fabric was the whole starting point: it had to fold with minimum creasing, wear well after hours in a bag, and take up as little space as possible. That’s what let me fit so much more into an overnight bag than I ever could before — a handful of pieces doing the work of a full suitcase.

I’ve always known black works for every occasion, so a lot of the range is built around that — pieces that move seamlessly from a flight to dinner without a second thought. That’s really what “works for all ages” means to me in practice: not a size chart, but clothes that solve a real problem —minimum creasing, bulk, indecision — regardless of who’s wearing them or how old they are.

What are the non-negotiable pieces in your own wardrobe right now, the ones you reach for again and again?

The perfect white shirt, always. Elastic-waist pants and skirts, in black or navy of course — comfort that still looks pulled together. A well-cut jacket, and a Chanel-type little black dress, the kind that does all the work for you. Good jewellery always helps too — it can turn the simplest outfit into something.

And then there’s one piece that isn’t really negotiable at all — an outrageously expensive silk jacket I will go on wearing forever. Some things you don’t buy for a season. You buy them for the rest of your life.

Style, Aging & Visibility

At 85, you still model every piece in your own collection. What has that taught you about how women’s relationship with getting dressed changes, or doesn’t as we age?

What it’s taught me is this: the desire to look pulled together, to feel like yourself in your clothes, never truly leaves a woman. What changes is visibility. Women my age essentially vanish from fashion imagery — it’s often a young girl in a miniskirt standing in for all of us. It’s difficult for me, but I’d rather stand there myself each week than hand the role to someone thirty years younger.

You’ve said it’s “good for people to see you can go on working at any age.” I am a firm believer in that as well.  Why do you think that message resonates so strongly with your Instagram community?

Because it gives them something they rarely see elsewhere: proof it’s not too late. 

Fashion imagery is almost entirely young women, so seeing someone in her eighties still working, still in her own clothes, tells them the door isn’t closed — for their career, their style, their sense of themselves. It’s not aspirational in the usual sense. It’s proof.

A lot of our readers are thinking about how to dress with intention rather than chasing every trend. What does “aging intentionally” through style look like for you?

For me it starts with one rule: if you’re not sure, don’t. That alone saves you from most of the trend-chasing that doesn’t actually work for you. I like pieces like a white shirt, black and navy separates, a little black dress — things that worked for me ten years ago and will work in ten more.

As you get older, it’s really about refusing to disappear. Every older woman’s fear is “mutton dressed as lamb,” so you have to be extremely careful — careful about what pieces you buy, and wary of anything simply because it’s “on trend.”

You’ve built an engaged following well into your 80s. What’s surprised you about connecting with women online at this stage of life?

What surprised me was how prepared older women were to trust online clothes shopping — I hadn’t expected that leap of faith at all. It also surprised me just how much work goes into producing a small range and building a website with real content behind it; it’s far from simple. But what surprised me most was how difficult it was to be photographed at my age — I had to slowly get used to that — before it became second nature.

In Closing

If you could give your younger self any words of advice, what would they be?

Stick to the classics. I knew I got it right when the new girls came to town, i.e. Biba and Mary Quant. I would describe them classic with an edge — which, as my younger self, I was confident to wear.

Share your words to live by.

“Nothing’s impossible.” That’s my mantra.

What sticks with me most about Jenny is her refusal to disappear. She could easily have handed the modelling to someone thirty years younger (and she’s the first to admit it wasn’t easy at first), but she chose to put herself back in the frame so the rest of us could see ourselves there too. Her rule of “if you’re not sure, don’t” is going on a sticky note in my closet, and her mantra might just go on my mirror. Nothing’s impossible. I believe her, and after reading this, I think you will too. Be sure to visit JLR online and follow Jenny on Instagram for a weekly dose of classic style and proof that this chapter is anything but quiet.

Follow Jenny here:

www.jennyleroux.com 

www.facebook.com/jenniferann.leroux

www.Instagram.com/jennyaleroux

TikTok: @jlrbyjennyleroux

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