Walking into a showroom at Marc Jacobs’s headquarters for his Resort mini show (well, not so mini, there were 55 looks), guests were greeted by a mannequin in an MTV sweatshirt, the block M dotted with neon palm trees like it might’ve been on the TV station’s logo 30-something years ago. The top, which reappeared in different versions on the runway, is a descendant of the Coca-Cola wave sweatshirt Jacobs put on his catwalk three Springs ago, and of a piece with the co-opted logos and borrowed branding images seen on other runways lately.
Jacobs is not averse to capitalizing on a hot trend, as the patch-strewn denim and camouflage pieces in the new collection also prove. It’s the zest, irreverence, and go-for-brokedness with which he does it that sets him apart from his New York peers. Few others could get away with a laser cat meme T-shirt, but then who else would try?
“We took Fall and made it kitsch, and went from YouTube back to MTV,” he said backstage. In keeping with the 24-hour music channel in its early days theme, Duran Duran played on the sound system, and the models wore their hair tightly crimped, their eyes darkly outlined. “I’m fried,” he said, “like the models’ hair.” The designer picked up the CFDA’s Womenswear Designer of the Year prize yesterday evening, but didn’t linger long at the ceremony. Preparations for this morning’s show went all night.
Paradise was variously printed and embroidered on the backs of jackets, but Jacobs said it wasn’t a nod to Paradise Garage, the famous New York in the ’80s discotheque. “Just paradise, this fictitious idea.” Real or virtual, he painted quite a picture: zebra stripes mixed with leopard spots, which clashed with racing checks; out-to-there crinolines were only outclassed by the exuberant puff sleeves of prairie dresses; and lace dresses came patch-worked with toucans and tropical flowers and martinis. A lot of it was silly, most of it was fun, and he’s going to sell a ton of MTV sweatshirts.
