marc jacobs spring 2009
(images via style)
i know i’ve said it before, but much of the time, i don’t get the obsession with marc jacobs. indeed, some of the time, he gets it, he does (as with the s/s 2009 collection), but much of the rest of the time it almost feels he’s simply getting a laugh from those he manages to bilk out of thousands for his tongue-in-cheek garments not so dissimilar to the more fashionable days of the hamster lady (i called her such because she chilled with her hamster in a cage on the sidewalk outside my building while drinking out of bottles disguised in paper bags & having meaningful discussions with the errant youth passerbys) i know.
however, for the season in question, i was taken by his work, and, for the moment, i got it. it wasn’t following a trend, it wasn’t merely about styling, pairing sweatpants with heels or underpants with a blazer & calling it “daring fashion”. this was creating a signature by blending a miasma of styles, bringing us some wholly new to help re-define the moment.
this was his brush with americana, his art piece, and, it felt, his letting go (at least with the clothes, although bags & shoes pushed it much as ever) his rabid desire to be cool. although many a girl would want to push some part of this collection, it’s hard to see most of the ny social set in pieces so wholeheartedly un-sexy, so derivative of a period where the pop and sparkle of short, body conforming dresses with weapon-like heels isn’t important.
this felt, to me, his ode to the type of creative girl who does make her own clothes from goodwill finds & scraps on the floor, rather than the “yuppies who live in lofts” (as one acquaintance drily describes myself), regularly attending art functions & sipping wine without ever actually getting glue in their hair or participating in creativity themselves.
i think it’s easy to cast someone else in some idyll description without knowing exactly who they are, but sometimes i have a hard time not seeing marc & his girls that very way. living some version of the artisan life without ever knowing what it feels to have dirt under one’s fingernails, no money to buy food, and an eviction notice looming. this collection may still be heavy on the glitz yet, but it seems he has a fairer idea of who that girl is and may remember her from time to time, in-between his lavish fur coats.
