There’s a scene within the new documentary “I Am: Celine Dion,” during which Ms. Dion describes her dedication to designer heels.
“When a woman loves her sneakers, she at all times makes them match,” the singer mentioned, spreading her fingers to exhibit how she contorted her toes to accommodate sneakers that vary from sizes 6 to 10. Requested about her dimension whereas buying, she mentioned she would inform salespeople, “What dimension are you? I’ll make them work. I’ll make them match.”
It is a feeling well-known to ladies who prefer to play dress-up: a willpower so nice that it resists phantasm.
That was actually the sensation at Marc Jacobs’ present on Monday night time, held on the New York Public Library. Trend is decided to be a joyful medium, even or particularly when the world looks without joy. And Mr. Jacobs was decided to decorate his fashions as surreal dolls of Twentieth-century American iconography.
A heavy white Marilyn Monroe robe opened the present. Its bodice was giant, with pointed cups and a skirt sculpted right into a everlasting half-moon. Marilyn walked in white sandals made to look about an inch too massive in all instructions, like a woman insistent on carrying heels from her mom’s closet. (“I stroll within the shoe, the shoe doesn’t stroll me,” as Ms. Dion would say.)
The proportions have been a continuation of Mr. Jacobs’s February parade: giant and cartoonish, like a joke we have been all speculated to be in on. The fashions appeared to be straining to maintain their thick garments in place, although after all they match precisely as Mr. Jacobs supposed. The necklines have been lifted by invisible fingers off the shoulders of Peter Pan collar jackets, preppy V-neck sweaters, voluminous floral cocktail attire. Sugary bikinis—one in white pointelle, fixed with a photorealistic daisy brooch, the opposite in yellow polka dots—swung and jutted from the physique.
Often, these proportions appeared diabolical. Some sneakers had horned toes. The fashions could not absolutely open their eyes, which have been lined by thick, pastel-colored eye pads, as a commentary on ladies blinded to the world by their obsession with magnificence. (Or maybe, because the designer Gabriella Karefa-Johnson prompt on Instagram, it was only a tribute to Miss Piggy.)
Although typically subversive — Mr. Jacobs could make a wonderful eyelet costume look deranged — the gathering was basically optimistic. The designer opened his present notes with a single sentence: “Pleasure, interval.” He wrote of seeing trend as a path to a “deeper seek for pleasure, magnificence and private transformation.” He showered Cardi B, a visitor, with a cloud of purple and yellow flowers.
Mr. Jacobs’ private transformation of late consists of carrying lengthy nails that may be seen and heard (the rhythmic snap!) meters away. On Monday, your nails were wearing French nailswith the ideas lined in valuable stones that recall a few of the embellished items within the assortment, together with a miniskirt go well with.
About mini skirt fits: Probably the most talked about subject in trend continues to be who will take over Chanel subsequent the game by inventive director Virginie Viard. Mr. Jacobs, who included quilted baggage into the present on Monday night time, is considered one of many names that come up in dialog — maybe not among the many prime three suspects, however someplace within the prime 10.
Whereas not one of the contestants have commented publicly on the hypothesis, some eyebrows have been raised by these phrases in Mr. Jacobs’s present notes: “The longer term stays unwritten.”
