New York Fashion Week's new condensed schedule concluded on Wednesday at the Park Avenue Armory where Marc Jacobs presented his spring 2020 collection, punctuating it with the joy of putting on a good outfit. “Tonight is our reminder of the joy in dressing up,” he wrote in notes left on guests’ chairs, the Associated Press noted. “Our unadulterated love of fashion and embracing grand gestures of unbridled expressions, reactions, ideas and possibilities.”
The space was mostly empty, save for a few uneven rows of mismatched white chairs and 61 models who entered to the Doris Day song “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” walking directly toward the audience in a chorus line of sorts. “This show, like that show, is a celebration of life, joy, equality, individuality, optimism, happiness, indulgence, dreams, and a future unwritten as we continue to learn from the history of fashion,” Jacobs told the AP, referencing his show before the 9/11 attacks. There were odes to Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld, as well as Anita Pallenberg.
The collection's assortment of delectable feather dresses, brightly-coloured suiting, floral-applique colours, corduroys sweater combos reminiscent of middle school, and star-covered trench coats finished a captivating week of designers like Kerby Jean-Raymond and Christopher John Rogers showing that fashion is not just about wearing pretty clothing. What you wear on your body is a reflection of everything around you. For Jacobs, that means anything “from late nights binge-streaming ... inspiration draws from the thoughtful and accurately executed set design of ‘Fosse/Verdon,’” and what he called the “boundary-pushing ... ‘Euphoria,’ so accurately portraying what it means to be a young person today.”