There’s a scene within the new documentary “I Am: Celine Dion” during which Ms. Dion describes her dedication to designer heels.
“When a woman loves her sneakers, she all the time makes them match,” the singer stated, spreading her fingers to reveal how she has contorted her toes to accommodate sneakers starting from dimension 6 to 10. Requested for her dimension whereas buying, she stated, she would reply to gross sales associates: “What dimension do you’ve? I’ll make them work. I’ll make them match.”
It’s a feeling well-known to girls who relish taking part in dress-up: willpower so nice it pushes up in opposition to delusion.
That was actually the sensation at Marc Jacobs’s runway present Monday night time, held on the New York Public Library. Style is set to be a joyful medium, even or particularly when the world appears joyless. And Mr. Jacobs was decided to decorate his fashions like surreal dolls of Twentieth-century American iconography.
A heavy white Marilyn Monroe costume opened the present. Its bodice was oversize, with pointy bra cups and a skirt sculpted in everlasting half flight. Marilyn walked in white sandals made to seem about an inch too massive in each path, like a woman insistent on carrying heels from her mom’s closet. (“I stroll the shoe, the shoe don’t stroll me,” as Ms. Dion would say.)
The proportions had been a continuation of Mr. Jacobs’s February runway present: massive and cartoonish, like a joke we’re all purported to be in on. Fashions gave the impression to be tensing to maintain their thick garments in place, although in fact they match simply as Mr. Jacobs meant. Necklines had been lifted by invisible fingers off the shoulders of Peter Pan-collar jackets, preppy V-neck sweaters, voluminous floral cocktail clothes. Saccharine bikinis — one in white pointelle, pinned with a photorealistic daisy brooch, and the opposite in yellow polka dots — swung and jutted off the physique.
Sometimes these proportions appeared devilish. Some sneakers had horned toes. The fashions couldn’t absolutely open their eyes, which had been lined with thickly lashed pastel-painted pads, like a commentary on girls blinded to the world by their obsession with magnificence. (Or possibly, because the stylist Gabriella Karefa-Johnson recommended on Instagram, it was only a homage to Miss Piggy.)
Although typically subversive — Mr. Jacobs could make a reasonably eyelet costume look deranged — the gathering was essentially optimistic. The designer opened his present notes with a single sentence: “Pleasure, interval.” He wrote about seeing style as a path to a “deeper pursuit of pleasure, magnificence and private transformation.” He lined Cardi B, a visitor, in a cloud of purple and yellow flowers.
Mr. Jacobs’s private transformation recently consists of carrying lengthy nails that may be seen and heard (the rhythmic clacking!) from yards away. On Monday, his nails had been French-manicured, their suggestions lined in gems resembling a number of embellished items within the assortment, together with a miniskirt go well with.
On the miniskirt fits: Probably the most gossiped-about topic in style continues to be who will take over Chanel following the departure of the creative director Virginie Viard. Mr. Jacobs, who included quilted purses into the present Monday night time, is considered one of many names that come up in dialog — maybe not among the many high three suspects, however someplace within the high 10.
Whereas not one of the contenders have publicly commented on the hypothesis, some eyebrows had been raised by these phrases in Mr. Jacobs’s present notes: “The longer term stays unwritten.”
