Earlier this month, designer Marc Jacobs hit the town for dinner at Eleven Madison Park in New York wearing an outfit that you simply couldn’t miss. His statement coat’s giant lettering read “MARC JACOBS,” and he paired it with Celine jeans and white Balenciaga boots. A die-hard lover of fashion, Jacobs is no stranger to wearing designer labels (his Prada collection remains unmatched, for one). But it’s his fall 2021 coat—designed by him, apparently for him—that stole the spotlight. What better muse for Jacobs than Marc himself?
Some of fashion’s biggest talents today often wear their own designs, and it’s fun to watch the self-referencing unfold. Take Donatella Versace. With her sky-high shoes, platinum blonde hair, and enviable handbag collection, she represents the modern Versace girl: Glamorous, bold, sexy. When Versace collaborated with Fendi last year—call it Fendace—Donatella was the first to emerge wearing one of the collab’s thick logo belts. On the other end of spectrum, The Row’s Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen design clothes that fall in line with their own luxurious and ascetic personal style.
Virgil Abloh—the late designer who spearheaded Louis Vuitton’s menswear and his own label, Off-White—was another king of wearing his own designs. In July last year, Abloh arrived at a Louis Vuitton dinner wearing a black suit with multicolor buttons, a white shirt, and a tie that read, “A Formality.” That cheeky logo message was a signature detail in his Off-White pieces, where his boots could read, “For Walking.” Rick Owens, fashion’s dark prince, also has a wardrobe full of his own signature items: He’s practically draped in his black, slinky jerseys around the clock.
It’s not just about the art of wearing your own clothes on the streets, though. Designers like Gabriela Hearst have even appeared in their own lookbooks, representing their frocks loud and proud. Others, like Miuccia Prada, have styled their shows based on their own approach to dressing up. When Prada’s models clutch their coats, for instance, it’s a clear nod to Miuccia. The same goes for Ralph Lauren’s blazers-with-jeans styling or Demna Gvasalia’s oversized hoodies—you can see them in the pieces.
Sure, it may seem like an obvious idea. Of course designers produce clothes they would want to wear. But designers aren’t always such mascots of their own work. Take someone like Comme des Garçons’s Rei Kawakubo. A master of all-black minimalism, her own wardrobe defies the voluminous, colorful, and avant-garde pieces she sends down the runway. This could also be said about Tom Ford, the prim-and-proper, suited-up designer whose ready-to-wear garments ooze sex appeal. It’s not always the case that a designer’s personal style mimics their collections. But in today’s world, where everyone needs their own personal brand, perhaps designers are realizing the power of self-advertising more and more.
Call it being self-obsessed, but if you truly think about it, these designers’s desire to dress like a walking billboard for their own label makes perfect sense. Their clothes represent a little piece of themselves, their inspirations and curiosities, so why wouldn’t they proudly rep that? As Jacobs, Abloh, and the Olsen twins show, being your own muse has a seriously fabulous end result. Below, see even more designers who embody their brands.
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