Monday, February 22, 2010

Marc Jacobs Fall 2010

I'm about to choke on a slice of humble pie. This Collection was a good one. There, I said it. It's the first time in I don't know how long that I really rather liked it, or more to the point, there was a lot
that was great and the rest was easily excused. My question is more, What Happened?

The collection was so nicely balanced between smart separates, well cut jackets , coats, shearlings and transparent raincoats with big , generous fur collars. The dresses, though nostalgic and little retro were lovely. It's like he went back to collections he's done before, plucked out looks that had great sentimental value and refined them. He said before the show that newness just isn't new anymore. That's news that should be added to his many tattoos that cover his newly minted bod. He's absolutely sort of right. So this collection came off as an effortless delivery, only the total picture for the most part just looked like good clothes and some of them really great.

I've been disappointed with his collections for a very long time. I've found little to excite me and have felt that he's a media/editorial/insider's construct. There's been precious little There there. His bouts with oversexposure, on again off again marriage announcements to his inamorato; all that smoke has made my eyes tear and my ears ring. I've been put off by too much press and not good enough product to take him seriously. One day not too many weeks ago I was meeting my friend for a yoga class at his gym and walked up to the front desk behind someone being helped. At first I thought it was a chic girl from behind with a boy's haircut, her Grandmother's vintage Persian Lamb coat and a gigantic Hermes Birkin as her gym bag. I thought, How impossibly chic is this? Then I heard a voice coming from this girl that was decidedly low, affected and male. I looked all the way down past the bare calves to laced up army boots and realized my mistake. It was HE. A sighting of the great, tattooed, man-tanned one, only dressed like an old lady. I turned to my friend and with my eyes asked him, WHAT? and he answered, mouthing the words, FASHION. The coat, the skirt, the PURSE, the fact. This kitten did his downward dog in a total daze. I won't even go into the locker room sighting, I'll leave that to your imaginations. I left that day with little faith that I would see much more than the usual stew that simmers in his pot.

Well, this collection is a gourmet meal. I've seen other reviews that have panned it, remarked on its pretensions and made a big deal of his decision to not invite celebs to man his front row. It all sounded like more BS, but there was a method to this madness at work and it paid off. I'll just share pictures of it with you and let you see for yourselves. You can draw your own conclusions. He even took his bow in a suit and tie. Who knew?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

next time pls try get us a snap of marky in he/she!

caropops said...

this is my first comment on your blog, but I so agree with everything you said;(not, of course, of seeing him from behind at the gym). The only problem is that I am one of the old ladies who would love many of these clothes, and that's what critics have been panning. His previous collections always seemed to me that he had taken a sudden dislike to women.

ARG said...

This is spot-on. Thanks for putting the MJ disillusionment/(possibly)renewed-faith cycle into such efficient and captivating prose. Whatdja think of the Marc by Marc show? (I had some of the same initial reactions as you had to this show, actually...)