Not a good week for Marc Jacobs. His collection that previewed Monday night at the New York State Armory got pretty much panned with the one notable exception WWD. They liked his cleaned up grunge looks. Of course Marc was known as the “King of Grunge” back in the late 1980’s. I remember his muses at the time included Ellen Saltzman’s daughter Elizabeth, who I once saw – and will NEVER forget – at a Jennifer George fashion show “grunged out” wearing a chest high rubberized suit with suspenders – the kind designed for fisherman to wade in shallow waters. Elizabeth was still in her wet & wild table top dancing days before she decided to settle down, get married, develop that austere look and work at getting herself just the right position at Conde Nast to take over Anna Wintour’s job when it comes available. And who could ever forget Marc’s last collection for Perry Ellis – it literally brought the house down and closed the women’s RTW collection for good.
Marc is now accused by some in the media of turning a blind eye to the “new reality” of post September 11 fashion with a show that was frozen in pre-September 11th terms. Worse, his collection seemed to more than a few fashion pundits as inappropriate, confused, grungy and that dirty of all dirty words “politically incorrect.” Strange things to hear about a guy who is the “poster boy” for all things hip and tuned in. But maybe he knows something we don’t?