Wonder. Fantasy. Naïve. Blowout.
These four words could (partially) sum up Marc Jacbos’ fabulous Friday night spring 2024 runway show. The event marked the brand’s 40th anniversary — with his longtime collaborators and friends including Debby Harry, Sofia Coppola, Dakota Fanning, Chloë Sevigny and more in attendance — and continued to prove Jacobs is still at the top of his (and the fashion industry’s) game .
Before his Park Avenue Armory set spectacle began, Jacobs’ “Wonder” titled show notes set the tone: “My love for the commonplace is a constant and meaningful lifelong affair. Through the unavoidable lens of time, my glass remains full of wonder and reflection. By examining the memorable and the mundane, we abstract and exaggerate with a disorienting familiarity in our desire to express something naïve and elegant.”
The large-scale sculpture of American artist Robert Therrien’s 2006 work “No Title (folding table and chairs, beige)” featured at the beginning of Jacobs’ long runway continued to send the message before models emerged in equally exaggerated fashions (and even bigger bouffant hair) with couture-level creativity, constructions and proportions.
With 47 looks, Jacobs hammered home the idea of “simple” clothing’s ability to be fantastical and impactful via impeccably tailored, oversize silhouettes with nods to ‘60s housewives; modern (and early 2000s) streetwear; Japanese constructions; men’s naval uniforms, and child-like, paper-doll nostalgia.
All of them were winners, but a handful of highlights included stiff knit jumpers with faux-bijoux brooches, big plaid Bermuda shorts with outside folded seams and exaggerated leather Oxfords, ‘60s skirt suits, shift dresses and swing coats paired with big leather suit bags and padded hobnob Mary Janes, and short jackets-as-dresses with big buttons and pannier-like flares. From XXL rounded sleeves to exaggerated bustiers and hips, everything was big-bigger-biggest, but with the ultimate sartorial restraint.
“The number-one thing I would wear: the oversize tracksuit,” actress Kathryn Newton, clad in one of Jacobs’ fall 2024 minis, told WWD post-show of his modern takes. They came both lofty and flared with mile-high platforms, or leggy and micro-hemmed with early 2000s crystallized accents of the Haven by Marc Jacobs signature double-headed teddy bear motif. Jacobs’ spring show was noticeably the first time he’s displayed the lower-price, streetwear-minded line on the runway, and it worked well, especially via his naive candy-colored crewnecks that took the runway just before his dazzling sequin- and giant pailette-adorned evening gowns closed the show.
“I felt it was like a dollhouse. It reminded me of when I would play with my Barbies…their jackets were really big with the big buttons. I feel like a baby doll, “ Newton said.
But what a doll — and what a fashion statement.
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