All clothes, shoes, and accessories THE Marc Jacobs Photography Cruz Valdez, styling Emma Wyman
Marc Jacobs is sitting in the showroom of his Spring Street offices in New York, vaping, and thinking about something which, for almost four decades, has been a hallmark of his work. “I like something old, something new, something borrowed,” Jacobs says with his natural effervescence. “A mix: high and low – when people with style don’t dress head-to-toe off a runway, they incorporate pieces that work for them into their own language and tell their own story with their clothes.”
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It’s a sensibility that has inspired and guided the designer throughout his career, perhaps most notably in the controversial (and recently reissued) SS93 grunge collection for Perry Ellis that put him on the map – and got him fired. Inspired by what he saw on the street, the designer took a $2 thrifted shirt and had it remade in $300-a-yard silk, before hitting up Converse to make Duchesse satin sneakers. “I grew up in a time when young people wore bits of army surplus like thermals and t-shirts, went to vintage stores and had one or two pieces of designer clothing if they could afford them by saving money,” he surmises of his approach.
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Reminder: this was decades before must-have $900 trainers, back when the idea of high-end casual was still a novelty – a notion Jacobs took to new levels when he introduced Marc by Marc Jacobs for SS01. At the time, he was setting trends both at his own label and Louis Vuitton – where he went on to introduce ready-to-wear in 1997 – and getting promptly ripped off in the process. With a debut collection featuring girlish rainbow glitter belts and plastic cherry hair ties alongside military-esque button downs, smartly tailored blazers, and denim mini skirts, the new, lower-priced MBMJ elevated the ordinary, putting youthful fun and irreverence firmly on the NYFW runway.
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All clothes, shoes, and accessories THE Marc Jacobs Photography Cruz Valdez, styling Emma Wyman