Marc Jacobs: FASHION AND AI
Do the clothes even matter?
I have always been a fan of Marc Jacobs. When I was living in New York City, his fashion week parties were legendary, and difficult to get into. One year, my friend Omar and I made it inside and, although I don’t remember a lot of the night, I do remember the golden hues of the elegant club and the feeling that I was upon the NYC fashion elite.
Marc Jacobs’ designs span decades and his shows are always a spectacle.
In June, Marc Jacobs presented his Fall/Winter 2023 RTW collection in New York City. The entire show lasted approximately three minutes.
Marc Jacobs has worked in fashion for decades. In 1987, he became the youngest designer to ever receive the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent. Notably, In 1992, Jacobs was awarded the ‘Women's Designer of the Year’ award by the Council of Fashion Designers of America and then promptly dismissed from Perry Ellis after the commercial failure of his “grunge” collection that same year.
Yet Marc Jacobs continues to persist. He continues to push boundaries that create conversation, in addition to creating great designs. (For me, that is the very definition of “artist.”)
This season, the conversation was about AI. The show notes, folded on everyone’s chair, were written by Chat GPT in a curt and mundane tone that repeated the same paragraph on different topics such as “men’s suiting for women” and “altered gowns in black and white.” The show was three minutes long and there were only 29 looks.
The styling on this show was impeccable. The models stomped down the runway in blade-runner inspired hair and tailored dresses and suits. The black tights were cropped which added to the 1980s nostalgia and the pointed-toe flats, (with socks!) nodded to the 1950s, another analog era. Alastair McKimm ( I worked with him a few times!) is a genius and this show and his work are proof of how important a Stylist is in the fashion world. The clothes weren’t necessarily seen in three minutes but the styling was. And it was impactful.
It always takes some time for fashion trends to trickle down from the runway to reality and it’s too soon to tell the impact these 29 looks will have. However, the impact of AI is already here.
