Marc Jacobs on challenging the industry and being a disrupter
Marc Jacobs changes the way we dress and inspires the industry to think. He talks to Alison Veness about process and being a natural disrupter.
VOGUE AUSTRALIA: What was the best part of your Marc Jacobs autumn/winter ’23/’24 show?
MARC JACOBS: “It’s so funny, because I guess the best part was this kind of enlightenment after the show. Every choice in terms of the way we showed it appeared accidental to me in the moment, but after the moment, it felt like it all made sense. So it was a kind of strange revelation.”
VA: I suppose the thing that surprised everyone was how short and fast the show was: three minutes. Did that become the most powerful part, or was it the collection itself?
MJ: “Even though, for us, putting on a show has been made smaller and intimate, I think we’re so in our little bubble of creating that we enjoy the process but don’t realise the bigness of some of the choices or how they resonate or inspire people. I was very much in that place where the conversations about what clothes we were going to make, why, and reminiscing and feeling somewhat nostalgic for a spirit of getting dressed – all of this was going into it.”
“Back in the days of MTV, I used to say I want to do a show the length of time of a music video. My shows did get shorter and shorter over the years, but I never got below that two-minute mark. I’m such a creature of habit and I kind of say the same things every time, but they manifest differently. I think this time was no different. We said the best thing to do would be the finale, because that part of the show would look amazing. You’ve got 30 to 40 people all at once and what you see is a kind of image of a group of people all at the same club or at the same party. The impact of that finale is so great … you lose the impact by taking it apart and delivering it one by one.
“Then when we were doing the rehearsal and everybody walked one by one, I said: ‘They’re just too slow, they need to go faster, there’s only one person in a look so there’s no reason why they can’t go faster …’ That’s how it happened.”
VA: You used ChatGPT to generate show notes. Was it intended to be provocative?
MJ: “Yes, and no. I have a very good friend who I think is one of the most brilliant creative minds in the world. She said to me: ‘You just can’t help it, you are disruptive.’ I thought she had a point. I think the thing with AI – and I’ve had this conversation with my psychiatrist, and he said I should just play with it, meaning ChatGPT, and I’ve been in situations where we’ve been discussing how everybody feels about this and what their fears are. I think I am a bit cynical in terms of this digital age we live in. I’m also just frightened by it. It’s so obvious we are in this world. I think with all the discussions and the news reports, documentaries and podcasts – there’s no denying, this is not going to go away. It can only go in one direction, which is up. It’s not going to go sideways.
“Those days before the show when I reflect on what we’ve done … usually what I want to say has nothing to do with the clothes, nothing to do with describing the clothes, but more to do with how I feel at that particular moment. But I just didn’t know how I felt and I didn’t know what to say. So we had jokingly said during the process, ‘Let ChatGPT write the program notes.’
“People including myself have become more reliant on our computers, our phones, I think we are getting dumber as a result of it and more anti-social. Saying all that, we’re still doing it and that’s the way it goes. I don’t know how one changes it or if there’s any point in trying to. So I think what I’ve learned in other aspects of my life, when there’s something you have to accept because it is the way it is, you embrace it. You see how you can use it to your benefit. It’s a tool. I think this season where I really didn’t feel like I had anything to say, I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll embrace this ChatGPT.’ Again, there’s a bit of cynicism in doing that, but there’s also this feeling of, well if you can’t beat ’em …”
VA: You said you had a feeling of nostalgia for this collection.
MJ: “It didn’t start out as nostalgia. In fact, Joseph Carter, head of women’s design – who is a magician, so creative and talented and I love him and we’ve worked together for many years – we sit down at the beginning of every season trying to figure out fabrics and colours without knowing what we’re going to do, and think about what proportions or conversations we’re interested in so there’s something to start with.
“We started talking about how we’ve done such big shapes and talked about the fact we had been really using utility clothes and classic workwear clothes, Carhartt and denim and cargo. Army clothes. We just said it would be nice not to think about those things for a minute. It would be nice to make minuscule, tiny shapes, which I really feared because I love looking at the landscape of an outfit. We got into this conversation about these shapes and what we were doing and if we draping it. Somehow in the process we got to this idea: there were these dance bodysuits over a cut-off stocking and a sock and we said, ‘Let’s not do the Kiki boots, let’s figure out the foot …’ I had been wearing platform boots or shoes for years. I recently fell in love with these ballerina slippers from Balenciaga and I started wearing them. I felt it would be interesting, all of these clothes on a flat shoe. Then we thought about that, and thought about our mouse shoe and a sock stuffed into it and the whole idea of a dancer in rehearsal, you know all those kind of cliches. Somehow that led us to looking at New Romantics and 80s club personalities who dressed in these kind of flat shoes and socks and wore romantic-type clothing that they kind of made their own by twisting or contorting. So we did that with cocktail dresses and nightgowns and evening gowns, and we just butchered them and pleated them and re-draped them into these teeny shapes that were so small you saw the knickers. They were all on these flat shoes. In the end, with the glove, I was like, ‘Oh my god, this looks like everybody I knew at a club in like 1986!’”
“I’ve always been excited by imperfection. I find beauty in it. I’ve always admired people who think to the left in fashion”
VA: You have had such an incredible influence on the way we dress. Do you fear looking back?
MJ: “I think, honestly, I fear getting old and being irrelevant somehow. I fear shame. I like what I do, I enjoy it, I enjoy being a part of my team. I fear letting them down, or not guiding them to the best of my ability. It’s not like we do something to please people but doing what we do without pleasing people is not what we want either. I don’t know if that made any sense. We show to an audience and 40 years later – I mean, I’ve been doing this for quite a long time – 40 years later I still worry that people won’t like it or won’t find it interesting. I almost don’t care if they like it, but I feel like if they’re indifferent that would be terrible.”
VA: Being disruptive, where does that come from?
MJ: “I think I’ve always been excited by imperfection. I find beauty in it. I’ve always admired people who think to the left in fashion and in music and art. It’s that little irritant, disruption, that just pauses a shift, or you think a different way or you see things a different way. As long as I can remember, I’ve always been more excited by that.”
VA: Recently, you’ve been posting on Instagram reading … a book?! Ha!
MJ: “I started doing that because I probably went well over a year without reading a book. I do love to read. I don’t get an opportunity. I’ve been super-busy and unfortunately exercising and reading are the two things that get dropped when I’m busy. I like to carry a physical hardcover book and I like to turn pages and I love the smell of an old book. I like to see that a week later I’m halfway through the book. I just love books. We have a bookstore so it’s no secret that Marc Jacobs as a company and as a person – me – love reading. I started posting the reading hour because there is something ironic about promoting a book on Instagram where people are just scrolling and swiping. I thought every few weeks I’m going to let you know what I’m reading.”
VA: Good to inspire people.
MJ: “It’s so funny because me and my friend Nora have this kind of book club and we always ask each other what we’re reading. My husband [Char Defrancesco] loves listening to podcasts and things like that, but he doesn’t really read. I was reading The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis … loving it so much. Then one morning I woke up and Charly started talking to me about two of the characters and I was like, ‘Well, how do you know about this?’ He said, ‘I’ve been reading it on my iPad.’ Which is a nice thing. But I think it’s not really reading unless you’re holding a book.”
VA: You are synonymous with New York. How has it changed for you? What do you love now?
MJ: “I’ve been going to the theatre recently in New York and that’s something I’ve always loved. Performances at Carnegie Hall have existed as long as I can remember, and they still exist exactly in the same place and they still have the same magic. Broadway is unchanged … these great old theatres with productions of new pieces as well as revivals. So those two things are like institutions. Of course, there are the museums and the galleries that I love. And those are unchanged. As far as clubs go, I couldn’t tell you because I have not been in a nightclub in New York City in decades. I don’t know if there is a scene. I don’t know what the kids do, I don’t know what their drug of choice is. Growing older, there are things that I am totally detached from. You know, when I used to do things that were inspired by nightlife for instance, I felt entitled to be able to do those things because I’d been there and I’d run around with those people and I’d gotten fucked up with those people. We were out night after night. I felt I was credible. I had the right to be inspired by those things. I don’t know what the music scene is anymore. Ava [Nirui], who works with us and does Heaven, she knows.”
VA: Heaven by Marc Jacobs has been so successful. Are you proud? Do you love it?
MJ: “Yes, I love it and yes, I’m super-proud. Ava is incredible. And what gives me a beautiful feeling inside is that she really does look at the things that I love and the people that I’ve loved and sees them through the eyes of her creative community. And how they manifest themselves into something new is just so appealing to young people and makes me feel really great. I feel like these seeds came from an authentic place. With me, I feel there’s an authenticity and not a pose when it comes to what she does.”
VA: Is there one show and collection that you think was “it”?
MJ: “The show just before the pandemic happened where I collaborated with Karole Armitage. There were all these dancers and then the models, and they all performed together so beautifully. At the end of that show I had this crazy physical reaction. I said it to Katie Grand, who I was collaborating with at the time, if I never do another show, I’ll be happy. It felt like the sum of everything I had experienced up until that point.”
VA: Looking at everyone you’ve worked with, especially artists, who would you like to work with now?
MJ: “There’s an artist whose work I am really excited by, Anna Weyant. I don’t know if I’m dying to collaborate with her but because I love her work so much, I’d like the opportunity to do something together. I have collaborated with a lot of the artists who are my friends, Elizabeth Peyton, Rachel Feinstein. I’ve never done anything with John Currin. That would be a real trip if we could do something. I would love to do something with Maurizio Cattelan. I think he is so amazing and clever.”
VA: Would you work with another fashion house again?
MJ: “Well, I’ve answered this in the past and my answer hasn’t changed. I think the most exciting job in the world is the designer for Chanel. So if I had to dream of where I’d like to be if it were for a European brand or big house in Paris, I would say Chanel would be my dream.”
VA: Music, who is on your playlist now?
MJ: “I am very, very lazy. I make no effort to learn or know about new music. I really haven’t. I don’t know his music very well, but I’m very fascinated by him as a person and that’s Tyler, the Creator. I love Cardi B. She’s just unbelievably charismatic and makes great music and is cool. I do hear things and my husband plays them. Sometimes in the studio something will come on and they’re all contemporary names or musicians who are current. I walk in the morning for about 20 minutes and I tend to listen to old music. It could be opera, or classical, although that doesn’t really get me going. I do like some good old disco from the late 70s. I do like pop music. Like Lady Gaga with Ariana Grande singing Rain on Me. I love old Britney. I love that English band Lush. I listen to Suede. I am triggered if I watch something … I was watching a documentary on Poly Styrene and then listened to X-Ray Spex for weeks.”
VA: What lifts your spirit when you need it?
MJ: “I love music. When I think about the type of music I’m thinking of it’s like an amphetamine. It gives you that charge and you’re in it. You’re racing. I love that feeling. I also love feeling music in a different atmosphere that’s very melancholic or very dark and sad. I just find that very, very beautiful. Then I’ll have good cry listening to Nina Simone or whatever it is.
VA: Love that you are perversely clear with ‘The Tote’, ‘The Bucket’ stamped on your bags and ‘The Baguette’ with your Fendi guest collaboration last year. If you could define your essence and stamp something on yourself, what would it be?
MJ: “This is probably the most difficult and complicated because there’s me the designer who you’re talking to. And although I feel like in my mind there’s no separation between the designer and the person, like I’m me and I’m talking to you and I’m not giving you a company line, I’m not performing for you. However … if I had something stamped on me – I have the word ‘perfect’ stamped on me already, a tattoo, and I have the word ‘shameless’ tattooed on me – I would stamp ‘the human’ on me. Curious. Creative. Kind. I guess those are some of the words.”
This article appears in the September issue of Vogue Australia, on sale now.
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