Marc Jacobs: Waisted

First, the prologue.

On Wednesday, February 6, 2008, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (the heat) indicted James Jackson (the bad guy) on charges of extortion related to the use of the 69th Regiment Armory of which Jackson was the former superintendent. Jackson stands accused of 31 counts of soliciting bribes in the form of cash, a Bowflex, and other material goods in exchange for reserving Armory space.

Twenty-four of the 31 counts related to Marc Jacobs International and KCD, a public relations company used by Jacobs. Jacobs has been holding shows at the Armory for the past seven years.

In a swift maneuver that seemed straight out of the Hoover playbook, Jackson's indictment occurred in the middle New York Fashion Week. A coincidence, Cuomo said, that occurred due to expected judicial processing times.

While an international rug company refused to pay and reported the extortion to the police, Jacobs--via KCD--paid up.

Cuomo stated that the payment of bribes could itself be a criminal act. The question of whether Jacobs has broken the law depends on unspecified circumstances still to be determined and investigated.

The show must go on, but before it did, the media indulged in some creative lead-in license:

The Daily Telegraph, Australia bookended its lead with sexual preference and scandal:

GAY fashion designer Marc Jacobs is in hot water again as justice officials investigate bribery allegations, days after reports emerged of his bizarre love triangle.

BBC News fiddled with semantics, making Jacobs the instigator:

Fashion designer Marc Jacobs' company is under investigation for allegedly bribing an official to host shows at an historic New York building.

The first act:

Imagine an Off-Off-Broadway show--let's say one of those 1960s French avant-garde pieces that no one understands but whose patrons come away feeling intellectually superior to the rest of us dolts--in which the director rushes from backstage to insist that the audience be seated before the show can begin. Or perhaps it's not French at all but just a friendly little comedy by Tom Stoppard. The kind of play that has a partially removed fourth wall and a bit more expectation in terms of audience response. The audience may or may not be asked to dance in the aisles, throw popcorn, or blow raspberries. Or they may just be admonished to sit the hell down.

The audience in these dramas becomes a cast of extras, or, in the case of the Jacobs show, a sort of humiliated Greek chorus whose only permissible vocal response would be a sigh of delight. Not too loud, though, because the orchestra has started, and it is none other than Sonic Youth, that band of undead, downtown alt-rockers who manage to keep their act hip even though Kim Gordon is nearing 60.

Outside, bouncers bar ingenue stylist Rachel Zoe from entering, which leads to a high-pitched, Acting 101 tantrum. Ms. Zoe was tardy, a social gaffe that might be defensible considering that Mr. Jacobs started his Spring 2008 show two hours late.

Post-show, Jacobs pacified Ms. Zoe, who was wearing the eye makeup of a community theater Gorgon.

This was the second time Jacobs has appeared at the start of a show. The last time was spring's backwards collection, but there he was only doing his victory lap before starting the show with look #56.

The second act:

Jacobs enjoys the thrust of social immediacy in ways usually reserved for rock stars and other blighted luminaries. He's been sober, he's relapsed, he's had something sucked out of his jowls. His last collection featured that shoe. Now, headed into the soberness of what looks to be a fairly depressing fall, he sent out a parade of proportions that for the most part did not display to best advantage on those models who appear to have taken a pre-show swig from the bottle labeled "Drink Me."

The designer admitted that he was "not inspired." It wasn't clear if he meant inspired enough to thematically follow through on an ad hoc tricorn hat that he claimed referenced Paul Revere, or whether he meant that he was not inspired in general.

Coats in colors of pavement and sky fared best, as plush countermeasures to fall's bony grip. Unexceptional sweaters and pants that grappled with hipbones detracted from some probably outdated idea of fashion as physical enrichment. The focus was on movable or non-existent waist, an idea Jacobs continued from the spring collection. Often, Jacobs dropped waists until proportion turned into distortion. Due to the large number of disproportionate midsections, the most gracile looks had no waists at all.

The third act:

This wasn't the collection to make anyone drop trou, even if it appeared that some of the models might. But Jacobs designs for urban environments like Manhattan where in many instances what is needed is not art but stealth, and this collection is just the bland urban camo you'd want for sneaking past enemy lines.

Image: Style.com