J.Crew Fires Exec Who Celebrated His Survival Through Massive Layoffs

According to Fashion Week Daily and the New York Post, Alejandro Rhett has lost his job at J.Crew this past Thursday — one week following the company's announcement of a massive round of layoffs at its New York offices — after Rhett posted a series of tasteless Instagram photos celebrating his continuing employment (such choice hashtags include #hungergames and #maytheoddsbeeverinyourfavor). Rhett, who had been at J.Crew since 2007, was appointed as vice president of men's merchandising in April 2014. He personally laid off a handful of employees on June 10, and the combination of his executive leadership position and the Instagram photos’ flippant inclusion of several aggressively preppy, Patrick Bateman–type elements (jokes about pleated shorts, glasses of rosé) led many on social media to label Rhett a sociopath. Others have been defending Rhett, saying that the Instagrams were celebrating his birthday, not the firings. Since the Instagrams were first posted last week, the accounts of Rhett's fellow celebrating J.Crew employees Vanessa de Jesus (@v_dj) and Julie Stamos (@jsstamos) have disappeared, and Andrew Ruth’s (@andrewrny) has been set to private. There’s no word yet on whether those employees are still with the company. We're waiting on a comment from J.Crew about those staffers’ employment status, but it issued the following statement to press last week: "We do not condone this behavior in any way. Individuals’ actions do not represent the culture of our company – this is not who we are. The tough decisions we made last week were not something we took lightly. We do our best to make decisions with care and compassion for all of our associates. Our values at J.Crew are and have always been about respect, support, and consideration for others."