Joyce Michel

Joyce Michel (born Joyce Marie Kmiecik on June 22, 1951) is an American fashion designer, inventor and business executive. She has collaborated on a variety of fashion projects for various fashion companies as head designer and creative director for over 20 plus years. Michel helms her own label fashion house, Joyce Michel New York, that produces a line of intimates for women, men and children.

Early Life

Joyce Marie Kmiecik was the first of nine children born to John Adam Kmiecik and Therese Joyce McGuiness. Her eight siblings include: Joan, John, Jacqueline, Julie, Jean, Jennifer, Joseph, and Jerome. Joyce graduated from Sam Houston High School (SHHS) in 1969. It was the loss of the school uniform that prompted Michel to learn to sew and tailor from her godmother, Verona Orlando, when she transferred from private school to public. At SHHS Joyce was lauded for designing the cheerleader uniforms.

Medical Education

In 1969 Joyce entered St. Thomas University in Houston on scholarship, then transferred to the University of Texas for two years. She was selected as one of eight people to be trained for a new profession that came to be known as Physician Assistants. Joyce later began work on a PhD/MD at Louisiana State University School of Medicine but withdrew within two years, after finding that her passion for the profession had waned.

Real Estate Career

Joyce’s maternal grandfather and father influenced her love of architecture. Her grandfather held degrees as an architect and engineer and her father designed and built the family home. Her godmother’s success in real estate prompted her entrance into the world of Real Estate sales after leaving Medical School. Joyce was able to obtain her Certified Commercial Investment Member credential within a year and a half of entering the real estate business. She sold the most expensive home in New Orleans her second year in the business and opened her Real Estate School, Property Research Institute, the following year. Featured on the cover of the The Times-Picayune Magazine, Joyce Michel was tapped to teach for the National Association of Realtors, her third year in business and had the largest enrollment of students in the state of Louisiana prior to interest rates going to 21% under Jimmy Carter in 1980. This rise in interest rates forced her to shutter her doors and reconsider what she wanted to do with her life at the age of 33. Upon reflection she realized fashion came effortlessly to her and she decided to pursue a career in it.

Fashion Education

After leaving the real estate industry Joyce married Robert Michel but soon thereafter she moved from New Orleans to study at the Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in Paris. On summers between her year abroad and before entering Parsons School of Design in New York City, Joyce worked for Jimmy Galanos, of Galanos Originals, as a seamstress sewing sleeves in his Los Angeles factory. Always gracious, and willing to advise Joyce, he suggested that she forget couture and go into designing for the masses.

Admitted to Parsons School of Design as a junior due to her previous higher education, Joyce graduated with a BA in two years. Having been separated from her husband for years, Joyce’s decision to remain in NYC resulted in divorce.

Early Fashion Career

Donna Karan / DKNY

Upon graduation in 1984, Joyce interviewed with Donna Karan New York, then a fledgling company. In order to be hired, Donna suggested Joyce do a “project”, to include “new and different” ideas. Instead of writing a business plan, Joyce drew sketches for new product lines. Joyce’s concepts/designs were the basis for Donna’s Body Toners. The Donna Karan Body Toners were a new revolutionary line of pantyhose with a control top that extended to the mid-thigh area. Joyce’s ideas for Donna grew into a legwear category that subsequently created revenues of $350M annually for legwear manufacturers industry wide and revolutionized the pantyhose business.

Joyce also designed a line of fragrances that was launched under the DKNY brand in unique packaging that, with multiple purchases recreated, the New York City skyline.

Lightweight Hikers

A two-year tenure for a small men’s footwear company allowed Joyce to travel to the Orient. There she was given the assignment to create a new category of footwear called Lightweight Hikers. Joyce combined materials, color and features to create a new category of footwear. Lightweight hikers became an over night success and a half a billion dollar footwear category industry-wide.

Absolut Vodka

In 1991, Joyce Michel was one of only two American designers to produce work for Absolut Vodka's long-running Ad Campaign. ABSOLUT MICHEL and ABSOLUT MICHEL AND CULLEN were 1991 Women's Fashion Collection ads and 1991 Men's Fashion Collection ads respectively.

The ABSOLUT MICHEL AND CULLEN advertisement featured a cowboy boot. A year later Joyce Michel and Michel Roux, then President and CEO of Absolut Vodka, appeared together in The Cowboy Boot Book.

Joyce Michel Lycra 3D Legwear (DuPont/HSN)

By the early 1990’s Joyce began to realize that her ideas could impact that marketplace in a significant way. Home shopping networks were in their infancy and Joyce was intrigued by the sales figures. She approached DuPont about creating a line of Legwear for a home shopping network and made her Home Shopping Network (HSN) debut in 1995 with her line of Lycra 3D Legwear. Innovative packaging made it easy to organize the customer's hosiery drawer. A year and a half later projected sales for her line of legwear, shapers and leggings were $17.5 M. When Barry Diller purchased HSN, he mandated a change in price points that made her program obsolete.

Kate Spade

Once again, forced to reinvent herself, Joyce began working as a freelance designer and conceptualized, designed and positioned a line of bedding for Kate Spade New York. This line of linens went on to win the Elle Décor Elle Decor International Design Award for Bedding in 2004.

One Joyce's inventive design features included hidden zippers under overlays, on the duvet front side, that made it easier for consumers to dress the bed.

Current Projects

During this time, Joyce began the development of a new line of intimate apparel for men, women and children combining her knowledge of medicine and fashion. Joyce plans on launching the new revolutionary line of intimates in late 2009 or early 2010.