"I didn't want it to feel real" said Jacobs. And that's the beauty with him; it never is real.
Few designers can contort reality with their vision. Most overdo thematics, construct an exaggerated setting and act out their school play with the most camp clothes. But mark Jacobs can do it right and he can do it with a feeling. Here, his references to Bob Fosse jazz hands drew you into dance hall days and wrapped you in the theatricality of a broadway show. If the Dior rumours are to be believed, he'll make a fine couturier.
Gold lame curtains drew back and on a wide wooden catwalk, lit with huge retro lightbulbs, Marc Jacobs stirred together contrasting decades - and it still didn't seem strange. We were in there with him; twirling in drop waisted 1920s flapper dresses, listening as the futuristic shredded plastic ruffles, crashed against each other, in time with the music. 1940s pin-up head scarves and translucent plastic cowboy boots lured you into different parts of the Jacobs psyche and seemed erratic, yet maintained an element of control.
The dazing mix of fabrics moved from synthetic into natural, then to both, then back again; giving you no time to analyse it, just leaving you to breathe it in. Thick tinsel shards of sequin plastic sometimes billowed like soft fur but other times simulated sharp sci-fi scales; depending on the angle. In a similar way, see-through organza gift-wrapped the bottom half of the models like cellophane, appearing rigid but moving with ease.
Behind the razzle-dazzle-show-girl kicks, however, was an unnerving obscurity. A discomfort of sorts in the models' faces, in the way they moved and in the collection's free-fall through time and place. Better than most, Marc Jacobs knows these showbiz demons, that try to simmer quietly underneath but nearly always end up flooding the act. Something was deflated, dampening the bold colours and drowning out the music; whilst his heart is in Marc Jacobs, his head was somewhere else.
Few designers can contort reality with their vision. Most overdo thematics, construct an exaggerated setting and act out their school play with the most camp clothes. But mark Jacobs can do it right and he can do it with a feeling. Here, his references to Bob Fosse jazz hands drew you into dance hall days and wrapped you in the theatricality of a broadway show. If the Dior rumours are to be believed, he'll make a fine couturier.
Gold lame curtains drew back and on a wide wooden catwalk, lit with huge retro lightbulbs, Marc Jacobs stirred together contrasting decades - and it still didn't seem strange. We were in there with him; twirling in drop waisted 1920s flapper dresses, listening as the futuristic shredded plastic ruffles, crashed against each other, in time with the music. 1940s pin-up head scarves and translucent plastic cowboy boots lured you into different parts of the Jacobs psyche and seemed erratic, yet maintained an element of control.
The dazing mix of fabrics moved from synthetic into natural, then to both, then back again; giving you no time to analyse it, just leaving you to breathe it in. Thick tinsel shards of sequin plastic sometimes billowed like soft fur but other times simulated sharp sci-fi scales; depending on the angle. In a similar way, see-through organza gift-wrapped the bottom half of the models like cellophane, appearing rigid but moving with ease.
Behind the razzle-dazzle-show-girl kicks, however, was an unnerving obscurity. A discomfort of sorts in the models' faces, in the way they moved and in the collection's free-fall through time and place. Better than most, Marc Jacobs knows these showbiz demons, that try to simmer quietly underneath but nearly always end up flooding the act. Something was deflated, dampening the bold colours and drowning out the music; whilst his heart is in Marc Jacobs, his head was somewhere else.
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