Marc Jacobs – Pre Spring/Summer 2016 Ready-To-Wear

More than the jeweled embroideries, the waffle-knit cashmeres, the deconstructed prom dresses, and the f’ed-up shoes, what has defined Marc Jacobs’ career is the 180-degree turn. He loves a runway surprise. But not this season. Resort, which he showed in his Mercer Street store—35 girls, one for each look, crammed “backstage”—was a rethink of his Diana Vreeland Fall collection rendered in lighter-weight fabrics. The Fall show was a winner, and this one was, too: joyous and just a little bit twisted, starting with the head scarves and severe brows, on down past the chin-grazing plastic collars, all the way to the pointy-toe Mary Janes and the red platform boots.

What held the collection together were the compulsive embellishments. The excess began with the fabrics. Broderie anglaise, St. Gallen lace, shimmery taffeta—Jacobs treated all of them to oversize crystals, grommets, and thread embroideries. And no item was too humble to escape the obsessive detailing, pullover sweatshirts and hoodies included. Even the numbers without those adornments looked like they had them—a nod, Jacobs said, to Martin Margiela, who printed sequin dresses facsimile-style on silk jersey back in the ’90s. The show’s stars were a pair of coats in red and white. “Fashion must be the most intoxicating release from the banality of the world,” Vreeland once said. Single- and double-breasted, narrow of shoulder in the MJ way, and featuring clusters of crystals front, back, and on the sleeves, those coats qualified.