For some reason, I’ve written a review of Marc Jacobs almost every season. He gives good review fodder, even if his clothes end up being much the same, finding themselves in discount bins at high class joints. They’re seasonal, incredibly seasonal, because Jacobs plays a shallow and vapid game- that of contradicting what the rest of the establishment is doing. I remember talking to people in London, and we were talking about what shows we actually cared about at New York Fashion Week. I reeled off “Rodarte, Calvin Klein”- then a pause- “Marc Jacobs?” with just the faintest whiff of a question mark at the end. But it is a question, and the question becomes more and more pronounced with each Marc Jacobs show as of late. (For Loyal Readers, you’ll remember I actually have positive reviews to two Marc Jacobs shows, and even claimed that this is what more girls should be wearing. Forgive me. Nobody should be wearing pieces from Mr. Jacob’s latest collection. For one, they’re probably too expensive for what they are.)

What Marc Jacobs has so boldly created is a collection that’s cheap-looking, derivative, ticky-tacky, banal and mundane. That’s quite an achievement, to do all at the same time. I find the glass of nothing sitting on my desk more interesting than this collection, though you’re all going to look at me as if I’m mad if I start writing about that. The Neil Young I’m listening to- the record being “Decade”, my first Neil Young record, might be more interesting to write about, and it’s certainly more interesting than anything by Mr. Jacbobs. I’m sorry- I don’t share the same teenage love that the rest of the world shares for his collections. That doesn’t mean he can’t make a good collection, but this collection wasn’t it.

We need only look to Rei Kawakubo to see who has influenced Mr. Jacobs on this collection. And by “influence”, what I mean is “shamelessly rip off whilst basking in the adulation of the fashion world.” To which I ask the question- does the fashion world suffer from amnesia? Is this actually just a simple case of almost everybody in fashion also being amnesiac? In which case, we can all pack up our deckchairs, I can stop writing and go to bed, and we can dust our hands off and go “Forgetting Rei Kawakubo’s last collection! Oh, you fashion world you! Whatever zany antics will you get up to next!”

Mr. Jacobs has had some successes with his hokey-pokey mash-ups in the past- I recall a collection inspired by Yves Saint Laurent as being stunning, at least on the runway. Yet his best work is purely American (saying “Americana” is too folksy for a designer like Jacobs)- reimaginings of American sportswear, evening wear, casual wear and so on. The “Sonic Youth” collection, where he showed one sleek polar fleece silhouette after another on the faces of depraved youth being a prime example. His mish-mash technique doesn’t work here. His treatment of typical Comme des Garcons motifs is too heavy, too clumsy. Military style jackets with layers of clothes under them (as with the last Comme des Garcons collection) can be broken down into very simple pieces of clothing- “basics”, as some might call them. (Unlike the last Comme des Garcons collection.) Satin bras on top of clothing are simply passé at this point. Where Kawakubo uses ruffles to indicate lips, ruffles are used here for the hell of it without any rhyme or reason. There’s cutout aspects to a satin, uh, “outfit” that hint of Margiela or even Issey Miyake, but the subtlety isn’t there. It’s akin to a bull walking through a china shop trying to convince everyone, even his mother that he is in fact a ballerina with the Paris ballet. Nevermind that bull’s knocking over all the china- he’s trying to do it to a soundtrack of Swan Lake.

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