new york: marc jacobs

If there is any working American fashion designer with enough media presence, critical and commercial pressure, and acceptance amongst the fashion conscious and cognoscenti, it would be the man in a skirt on Monday night, or more simply known as the Marc Jacobs. Never one not to disappoint, incite, confuse, or enrapture, Jacobs is so clearly on a creative roll, or more accurately, a path that is so singular and surprising season after season. The trends and styles may change with each theatrical set piece, but the Jacobs verve never fades. His eye for the beauty in the ugly, subversive cultures, and appreciation of the tension between history and the future, originality and pastiche, and the big grab bag of popular culture has cemented his idiosyncratic genius as one of the most thoughtful and thought provoking minds in contemporary fashion. After seasons of Bertolucci ennui, lingerie play, and '80s bathrobe coats, where oh where does Jacobs decide to take us in his wanderlust, hodge podge adventure? America The Beautiful, of course.

Don't let the recent shot of Jacobs in his underwear that accompanies his New Yorker profile lead you to believe he's someone that would be caught with his pants down. Part of Jacobs' genius is his media savvy, the way in which he skewers celebrity by being one and befriending them. He's been to rehab, he's morphed his look more than once, and his personal relationships have become under as much as attention as one of his celebrity muses. In a way Jacobs needs to play that game because when you really look at what's going on in his collection they are so densely packed with intelligent and esoteric ideas that you wonder how this enfant terrible has connected with the mainstream as much as he has. For Spring/Summer his almost avant garde take on American sportswear was another alchemic stew of references and ideas. Japanese inspired waist cinching obis, early '90s grunge plaid, Joan Crawford über-bitch, African inspired headwraps and tribal prints, Dust Bowl gatherer, George Cukor heroines, and I'm sure a host of other people, places, and things we're not, or even Jacobs for that matter, are aware of. Phew! Somehow Jacobs is able to blend all of this together into a cohesive statement about the power and resilience of American women. He's also smart enough to realize these looks should not be absorbed as a whole, there's something in every look that could turn on any woman, whether it be a mismatched prairie skirt, funky shoe, or brocade-looking jacket. This is the kind of fashion America needs and hopefully the man in the skirt can keep raising the bar.