marc jacobs resort 2013
(images via ny mag)
over the course of a number of seasons now (see s/s 2009, f/w 2010, resort 2011, s/s 2011, f/w 2011, resort 2012, s/s 2012, f/w 2012), you’ve read me toss both love and skepticism marc jacobs’ way, both of which, i fervently believe, are deserved in good measure, whatever some of his hardcore devotees among the fashionie set might have you believe he could turn a dowdy castoff into something hot faster than anything this century-side of gabrielle chanel. but. ‘whatever’, i’ve always said, ultimately finishing with the thought that, like so many of his peers, he can churn out both design, or sometimes—and dare i say more often, just plain styling—brilliance or an impatient sigh and wish that he would stop trying so hard with what feels a fairly even roll of the dice.
so, now, before you’re too quick to get vexed, i do want to let you know that i thoroughly appreciated his cheerily colourful resort 2012 presentation, and am mostly prepared to give it up to the man as such. and even if i’m here tempted to point out the textiles, and indeed, probably the actual styling, are doing much of the tricky sartorial footwork here, he still did manage to put the looks together and create the mood, so perhaps it’s wiser not to split hairs and simply acknowledge that the above is (maybe unfortunately, but that’s another topic) much of what the whole realm of fashion design is about these days. or at least in the major cities (but again, delving into that is fodder for another time).
thus, maybe i’ll find myself shutting up here, so we can listen to what the critics have to say. and so, fashionologie reported that “took inspiration from photographer Cindy Sherman’s series of clown portraits. But what keeps the collection from venturing too far into circus territory are its ’70s prints and sophisticated tailoring. The exaggerated shapes and innovative styling — for example, a below-the-knee dress paired with wide-legged trousers creates the look of one long-sleeved maxi dress — harken back to Jacobs’s Fall 2012 collections for Louis Vuitton and his own label. As a result, this collection makes a fitting addition to his growing assortment of very modern classics.”
meanwhile, adding to the inspiration stemming from ms. sherman’s work, style chimed in that “(p)roportions were either oversize or shrunken, polka dots clashed with plaids, and platform sandals were affixed with gumball-sized rhinestones. ‘Boldness, gaudiness, butterflies, and deli carnations’ were the terms being tossed around.” they then went on to comment that “there were looks here that have serious retail potential. We’re talking specifically about the silk crepe dresses that hewed to thirties-by-way-of-the-seventies lines. The most charming of the lot came in a mint green floral with three-quarter puffed sleeves, a keyhole neckline, and a scooped-out back, but there were several versions of them on the mini-runway and even more hanging on the racks.”
and finally—it’s always a bit frustrating that so few reviewers take the time to write up the resort collections, though they’re actually that which fills the shops the longest—the ever-meandering vogue began by stating that the “collection was infused with a spirit of giddy optimism that drew on uplifting Pop Art color and print, and toyed with playful proportions that sampled the linear seventies, the puffball eighties, and the deconstructed nineties—all spun into a uniquely Jacobsian 2013 mix. The collection brimmed with options—from a lean silhouette of skinny crepe dresses in bright, overscale florals, or tunics worn over pants with a gentle, bias flare, to stiffly tailored jackets paired with airy bouffant skirts that had a soupçon of eighties Christian Lacroix to them.”
“Those slender shapes,” they prattled on, “were made in vivid-colored crepe scattered with rose and carnation prints, in eye-popping color combinations such as rich pink on mint or orange on purple—worn with chunky platform sandals that enhanced the seventies King’s Road flavor. Jacobs’s tailored safari jackets and swing coats in glazed cottons or metallic plaids, worn over wide shorts or crop-legged Oxford bags, with their oversize pockets and buttons, had the charming, two-dimensional quality of the clothes for a child’s paper doll, as did the stiff dresses formed of cutout rococo volutes, and the matelot knits spliced with bands of brilliant colored sequins. There was…an upbeat whimsy to Jacobs’s unexpected fabric mixes—purple sequins veiled in green lace, for instance, or a firework sheath of blue and yellow sequins backed in somber black jersey.”
