Hard and soft, past and present, good girl and bad girl—Marc Jacobs loves to play with opposites. For Spring, he worked all those elements together into a collection that was sweet but with a hint of a hard edge—like a debutante who knows the bartender s name, or like Exene Cervenka, the lead singer of L.A. punk band X, whose songs made up the bulk of the night s soundtrack.
Part of the season s interesting dichotomy came from the silhouette: Jacobs cut a more frankly feminine shape than he has in the recent past, with deep necklines on full-skirted dresses, body-hugging sheaths under boxy jackets, and snug pencil skirts or cigarette pants paired with sexy camisole tops. And part of it was his flower-garden color choices: soft pink, lavender, pale yellow, orange, chartreuse, and ivory. For even greater contrast, he manipulated soft, airy fabrics like satin, lace, and cashmere against dense ribbed ottoman, nubby, Chanel-evoking tweeds, and silk shantung.
Jacobs brings in retro references both obliquely and directly; this season, he picked up bits from the cocktail-shaker days of the fifties and sixties: tiny bows and rolled collars, woozy polka-dot prints, "cocktail" dresses made from lace and satin. But despite its knowing dalliance with the past, this was a collection rooted very firmly in the here and now.
