Marc Jacobs - Fall 2016

Thank God for Marc Jacobs. Just when you were ready to give up on New York Fashion Week—its dull, derivative shows, the general lack of risk-taking, the freezing cold, the traffic!—along he comes and renews your faith. Tonight’s set, a spare white box with glossy white floorboards, wasn’t necessarily auspicious. But then came the ping of a bell, and a model’s shadow crossed the backdrop.

From the first sight of her gothy black liner and lipstick, foot-high platforms, shrunken band-concert sweatshirt, crocheted doily collar, and full skirt ballooning above a crinoline, we knew we were in for a show. Sixty-five heavily embellished, manically layered, and mostly black looks later, including one on Lady Gaga, we were all pretty much floored.

Like a lot of MJ collections, this one was full of callbacks; one of the pleasures of attending his shows is that they stir up memories. That concert sweatshirt was, of course, a direct reference to Spring 2016, but it took me back to Spring 2006, the season of the Penn State Blue Band. Black-and-white polka dots called to mind Jacobs’s Edie Sedgwick show; the long capes evoked last Fall’s Diana Vreeland moment. That game could go on and on all night. The trick was how Jacobs made the clothes both familiar and new, recasting all of them in black and white and shades of gray, and playing with proportions. Most of the time, he sized jackets and coats way, way up, but he shrunk some, too, like Julia Nobis’s fabulous crystallized bolero. The outerwear and the sparkly evening pieces are likely to be the major takeaways for retailers.

Also like a lot of Marc Jacobs collections, this was loaded with references. Jacobs name-dropped Lydia from Beetlejuice, Christina Ricci (who sat in the crowd), and various unnamed “ghosts of New York.” Some saw Kiss’s Gene Simmons in the coq feathers, starry eye makeup, and platforms; others saw fashion legend and Vogue contributing editor Lynn Yaeger in the furs on top of knits on top of prints on top of crinis. As for the cats and rats and crows that decorated many of the looks, they were drawn by Stephen Tashjian, the artist and drag performer known as Tabboo!

Jacobs came out for his bow in a suit and a T-shirt he’s designed for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. On her website, it’s red, white, and blue, but if HRC knows what she’s doing, she’ll get Jacobs to make a few special-edition black-sequined versions like his own. Bringing it all back around to the subject of New York Fashion Week, it’d be the see now-buy now item of the season.