“I used to have a studio in Williamsburg, until about 1999,” the typography and graffiti artist Greg Lamarche said. “And then it went residential.” Lamarche, whose graffiti appeared on walls throughout northern Brooklyn in the 1990s, is making a return of sorts. His newest (legal) piece is a colorful jumble of found letter forms spelling out J.Crew, which cascade along a wooden barricade outside the brand’s coming store on Wythe Avenue in Williamsburg. Set to open in mid-September, it will be the company’s first outpost in the neighborhood.  “We didn’t want to just go and do graffiti,” says Jenna Lyons, J.Crew’s creative director. Initially, she wanted to keep the store’s facade as she’d found it — covered in posters and spray-painted tags. “Unfortunately when we did a survey of the space, the facade was actually in such poor shape we had to replace quite a bit of the brick,” she said. “We asked, ‘Who is a local artist who might be able to do help us tell people we’re coming in a way that’s not obvious and might be able to reference that graffiti sensibility — but making it feel more modern?’ ”  Lamarche’s work is one of several pieces in the store commissioned from local artists that will help distinguish the Williamsburg location. Pastel concrete stools by Amma Studios will sit in the fitting rooms. Behind the cashier, you’ll find otherworldly minimalist mixed-media works from Johannes Girardoni. At the entrance to the women’s store, Lyons had Naomi Reis (who is also a copy editor at T) construct a mural that features a 3-D collage of overlapping plant life. “One of the things we loved about her work was the dimension you get when you layer things together,” Lyons says. “Also, we love that they’re very transportive.” Welcome to the jungle. The sensible sweaters are on your left.  Williamsburg’s transformation from hipster haven to upscale shopping and dining destination has been in the works for so long that it’s almost surprising that J.Crew is only arriving now. “We’ve been looking at Williamsburg and Brooklyn as a whole for quite some time,” Lyons says. “There’s a lot going on in terms of specialty. The food industry is actually incredibly rich over there. There’s a lot of people making beautiful pottery. Half the office lives in Williamsburg.”  But forget about Lyons’s real employees for a second: what would Hannah Horvath think of a J.Crew moving into Williamsburg? (Lyons famously played Lena Dunham’s character’s boss at GQ on the most recent season of “Girls.”) “I see her wear a lot of J.Crew,” Lyons says. “I hope she would be thrilled. I would never postulate what she would possibly say, but she seems to be a J.Crew devotee. Whether she wears the right size or not on the show, that’s a whole other thing.”  J.Crew’s new store opens at 234 Wythe Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Aug. 13.
The store, which remarkably is the brand’s first outpost in Williamsburg, features a playful mural on its exterior wall.