Jane By Design

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
From high school to high fashion!


Jane Quimby, an average, everyday 16-year-old girl, winds up with a job at the prestigious fashion company Donovan Decker. The problem? They do not know how old she is or that she is still in high school. Now Jane must juggle her two lives.


Tropes used in Jane By Design include:
  • Advertised Extra: Andie McDowell as Gray. Gray usually only has about 2 scenes per episode and almost always only seen via Skype or on the phone.
  • Adults Are Useless: All the adults on this show are completely oblivious to Jane's double life. Jeremy and India visit Jane's school and don't even notice that she's a student. Ben doesn't even notice when his little sister flies all the way to Paris. Ben slowly comes around to figuring out Jane's secret but the fact that it took him so long is quite ridiculous.
  • Alpha Bitch: Lulu and India.
  • Always Second Best: Lulu believes this in comparison to Jane in terms of Billy. Also, Nick, who, possibly other than that, thinks Jane puts her internship above himself.
  • Beleaguered Assistant: Jane.
  • Beta Couple: Billy and Lulu, Ben and Rita, Jeremy and India.
  • Big Man on Campus: Nick. Ben used to be one.
  • Brainy Brunette: Jane and Lulu.
  • Childhood Friends: Jane and Billy.
    • Just Friends: They play this off. Billy presents it more, dropping anything and everything to help Jane when she needs it. Even Lulu's threatened, and it comes to a head in the camping trip.
  • Cliché Storm: Ben's ghost story during the camping trip is an In-Universe example.
  • Cool Loser: Both Billy and Jane. They are not bad on the eyes, they are outgoing, and Jane herself is very fashionable in her wardrobe.
  • Daddy's Girl: Lulu, which terrifies Billy.
  • Easily Forgiven: Jane, to a certain extent. The characters sometimes show they aren't too happy.
  • Escapist Character: Jane.
  • Fail O'Suckyname: Billy Nutter
  • Informed Ability: Jane is apparently fantastic at her job. However, all we ever see is her screwing up even the most menial of tasks and then fretting about fixing it without anyone noticing. She always fixes the problem but she almost always requires Billy or someone else's help for it to work. This makes sense from a certain prespective though: Since she always manages to cover her failures, none of the people who tell us how fantastic she is at her job (Gray mostly) are aware of how impressively she manages to screw up.
  • Meaningful Name: "Plain Jane".
  • The Mole: There's one in Donovan Decker. Jane thought it was India and reported her to Gray, resulting in India losing her job. It turns out it was Jeremy.
  • Parental Abandonment: Billy's and Tommy's parents are nowhere to be seen, and it hasn't been brought up.
    • Missing Mom: Jane's and Ben's mother left them, or rather, Jane. Therefore, it made Ben sacrifice his baseball league dreams to take care of her.
      • Disappeared Dad: ...because their father's dead, making him the only possible guardian for her.
  • Official Couple: Billy/Lulu and Nick/Jane...at least, for the while.
  • Promotion to Parent: Ben.
    • Also, Tommy Nutter, Billy's older brother, due to the parents' absence on the show. But he's never near close to a parent at all due to his delinquent activities.
  • Real Song Theme Tune: "Work of Art" by Rachel Platten
  • Shallow Love Interest: Nick. Jeremy just narrowly escapes this.
    • Nick's beginning to escape it as the episodes carry on.
  • "Shut Up" Kiss: Billy on Lulu in "The Birkin."