Marc Jacobs’s Latest Fall Collection Is Delightful Delusion
The designer’s fall collection, inspired by “personal transformation,” was wholly cartoonish.There is a scene in the new documentary “I Am: Celine Dion” in which Ms. Dion describes her dedication to designer heels.“When a girl loves her shoes, she always makes them fit,” the singer said, spreading her fingers to demonstrate how she has contorted her toes to accommodate shoes ranging from size 6 to 10. Asked for her size while shopping, she said, she would respond to sales associates: “What size do you have? I’ll make them work. I’ll make them fit.”It is a feeling well-known to women who relish playing dress-up: determination so great it pushes up against delusion.That was certainly the feeling at Marc Jacobs’s runway show Monday night, held at the New York Public Library. Fashion is determined to be a joyful medium, even or especially when the world seems joyless. And Mr. Jacobs was determined to dress his models like surreal dolls of 20th-century American iconography.A heavy white Marilyn Monroe dress opened the show. Its bodice was oversize, with pointy bra cups and a skirt sculpted in permanent half flight. Marilyn walked in white sandals made to appear about an inch too large in every direction, like a girl insistent on wearing heels from her mother’s closet. (“I walk the shoe, the shoe don’t walk me,” as Ms. Dion would say.)The proportions were a continuation of Mr. Jacobs’s February runway show: big and cartoonish, like a joke we’re all supposed to be in on. Models seemed to be tensing to keep their thick clothes in place, though of course they fit just as Mr. Jacobs intended. Necklines were lifted by invisible fingers off the shoulders of Peter Pan-collar jackets, preppy V-neck sweaters, voluminous floral cocktail dresses. Saccharine bikinis — one in white pointelle, pinned with a photorealistic daisy brooch, and the other in yellow polka dots — swung and jutted off the body.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
