Jennifer Lopez, Lil' Kim, Steven Tyler and daughter Liv, Perry Farrell, Kate Hudson, a few off-duty models, and both Olsen twins. Marc Jacobs may have the most exciting front row of New York's Fashion Week, but he doesn't let it distract him from the work at hand—as his electric Spring collection proved.
Jacobs sent out supersaturated, eye-delighting tones like parrot blue, azure, yellow, hot pink, and royal purple, often in the same outfit. With his irrefutable confidence, Jacobs can make colors that might ordinarily be at odds seem perfectly natural and a perfectly chic combination; an azure cardigan with a deep-navy brocade skirt, or a navy and white polka dot cardigan over fuchsia trousers. And in a season of hues that sometimes border on the anemic, it felt like a trip to the tropics.
Jacobs put those shades to work in first-rate sportswear that's destined to influence the look of the streets next spring. He showed extra-full trousers worn low with wide white belts, rolled to mid-calf and paired with teetering spectator pumps. Those, and the swirly, swinging skirts, were balanced on top with boxy jackets and coats, or skinny little knits layered in various color and pattern combinations. His dresses, which hung loose from the shoulders and barely grazed the body on the way down, were shaped with meandering seams and often worn atop fluffy petticoats. And for those party moments, he reprised the shredded-and-stitched organza ruffle dresses of last year, this time decorated so densely they looked like the plumage of a bird of paradise.
