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Style seer Marc Jacobs leads world of fashion

Critical Eye

By Tanika White | Sun reporter

September 9, 2007

Under the glare of bright lights, camera flashes and critical eyes, big-named designers such as Carolina Herrera, Oscar de la Renta and Anna Sui will unveil their spring collections tomorrow - the sixth day of New York's Fashion Week.

But the frenetic day of runway shows will end where many of the industry's most savvy say contemporary fashion begins: At the Marc Jacobs show.

No matter what his freshly envisioned clothes actually look like - glamorous or grunge, romantic or retro - the 44-year-old designer Jacobs will unveil a fashion vision tomorrow night that is almost certain to define the direction for spring and set trends for future seasons.

In the sea of incredible, award-winning talent that Fashion Week offers, experts say Jacobs is - for fashion editors, retailers and everyday style-seekers - the designer to watch.

"When I, as an editor and person in the larger fashion industry, am trying to articulate for a larger audience the spirit of a certain season, the first designer I look to is Marc Jacobs," says Dannielle Romano, editor-at-large of DailyCandy.com.

"However he sends models down the runway - from their make-up to their hair to their hats - that impacts the entire season."

And oftentimes it influences several seasons thereafter.

"He has an uncanny ability to pick up some vibe in the air that is a year ahead, sometimes a year and a half ahead, of what culture is doing," says Michael Fink, Saks Fifth Avenue vice president and women's fashion director.

For example, designers have been showing on their runways for several seasons now, slouchy, oversized handbags, roomy enough for the day's necessities and gym shoes, too. Retailers have followed suit, stocking their shelves with large and lazy bags.

But in his fall 2006 collection - which made its debut in February of that year - Jacobs sent models down the runway carrying structured bags with hard metal closures. It's fall 2007 now, and style experts are just beginning to call the structured handbag "in."

"We showed some of his bags in our preview for this fall," says Eyvan Metzner, fashion director at Self magazine. "He did the coolest bags; they were very interesting, like these geometric shapes."

Jacobs has a knack for advancing fashion ideas that, in Fink's words, "take a while to digest."

"One year he did very mod, and had everybody wearing wigs and it was a little bit futuristic," Metzner says. "It took two seasons before other designers said, 'Hmm. Maybe it is time to go get into, like, a [Andre] Courreges'" [a 1960s French designer famous for futuristic, youth-oriented styles.]

The grunge look

Jacobs' defining moment in developing his ahead-of-the-curve style came in 1992, when the designer - then in his late 20s - was working one of his first big jobs as vice president of women's wear at Perry Ellis.

The design mood at that time was one of sophistication, form and to-the-body-chic - a real "Stepford Wives silhouette," says Romano.

But Jacobs had a love for "grunge" - a hard-worn, overwashed, loose and layered look. He designed a spring collection based on that feeling and dressed models in such items as lumberjack plaid and thermals, albeit made of cashmere.

The press - including Vogue editor Anna Wintour - loved the radical direction. Perry Ellis did not. Jacobs, and his business partner Robert Duffy, were summarily fired.

"They didn't quite see it," says longtime New York designer George Simonton, a professor of fashion design at the Fashion Institute of Technology. "They weren't quite visionary."

But Jacobs is nothing if not a visionary, fashion experts say. The grunge look eventually became a huge hit.

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Style seer Marc Jacobs leads world of fashion

Critical Eye

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Style seer Marc Jacobs leads world of fashion

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Photos:
• Scenes from Fashion Week

The Basics

• Where: New York
• When: Sept. 5-12
• Highlights: Ralph Lauren, Gwen Stefani and Nicole Miller

Live updates

Sun fashion writer Tanika White weighs in on trends of Fashion Week