Sunday, October 15, 2006

Review on the Marc Jacobs SS07 collection-post trunk show

It's finally the right time to share my view on the Marc Jacobs collection after experiencing the clothes at the trunk show.

Marc always has great ideas, and he is not afraid of using the elements from other designers to complete his ideas. This time around, Marc wanted to present the lightness. He used fabrics such as gauze, muslin, and lightweight silk that look like candy wraps. To balance the sheer looks, he used metallic leather, metallic sequins, tweed, and cotton gabardine to form more structured looks.

There were three kinds of metallic shown on runway: a metallic shirt made of paper, metallic leather, and metallic sequins. The Japanese made clothes with durable paper many years ago, but Marc introduced the paper fabric with a metallic coating to create a worn yet shiny effect. It was priced at $300 range, and I won't be surprised if many young people fall in love with it: I tried the silver shirt on, and I saw an updated "boyfriend's shirt" look on me instantly. The dress with metallic sequins was gorgeous. Not only the sequins reflected the light with a metallic shine but created great draping looks. The beautiful dress full of sequins was priced at more than $7,000, expensive but it made sense. The metallic leather jackets, however, felt stiff and lifeless. I'd rather pay less and purchase a jacket made of synthetic fabric to get the same look.

Another group of clothes were the deconstructed pieces. There were shredded T-shirts, shredded T-shirt dresses as well as deconstructed knit wear. They reminded me Martin Margiela, Comme des Garcons' "broken bride" collection, and Cristobal Balenciaga. Marc was not afraid of using bold reference to complete his concepts, but the dress on Stam showed so much reference that I felt slightly uncomfortable.

The prices on the T-shirt dreses were not sensible at all: the printed T-shirts with the simplest construction and the most common cotton fabric were priced at around $860 each. When a nicely made tweed jacket was priced at $1,500, it looked like a problem to me.

The dresses impressed me very much. I put on several size 4 dresses (the one worn by the model but two sizes bigger on me) and yet I was amazed by the beauty of them. One dress made me feel like wrapped in a beautiful flower yet it looked so abstract and well constructed. Another dress worn by Chanel on the show was the most amazing piece to me. It was a highly "Cristobal" looking little black dress with a great deal of volume, but Marc made two poufs on it with a sash belted between the two to define the waist. The brilliant design made it a statement piece without overwhelming the girl in it. If I had the courage to shed $3,900 on it, I would definitely do so. It is going to be a LBD never goes out of style and follows me for the years to come. (I should start buying lottery tickets, seriously!)

The "Arabian nights" looking pants were interesting but they looked hard to sell. The good news is that they are being perfected, and by the time they reach the stores, you'll see the slimmed down version. I expect them to be very flattering.

(all pictures were from style.com unless noted)

1 comment:

Kim said...

great report! the sf trunk show is november 2-5...i'll definitely be going to check it out.