Louis Vuitton
PARIS, March 5, 2006
By
The only designer who makes a major impact on both the New York and Paris runways, Marc Jacobs had the first and last say on the season with a collection that translated his look from Manhattan-American into Louis Vuitton French. Jacobs¿ influential layered urchin look, done up in the drab colors of putty, gray and concrete, turned a little more streamlined and perky to rhyme with the ever-cute jeune sensibility which he knows keeps the LV tills ringing across the world.Not to say that Jacobs deleted the eccentricity; if she wants, the Vuitton girl can jam on a completely mad flannel hat shaped like a flat upturned bowl, then sally out insouciantly to épater les grown-ups in scary black patent calf-length Velcro-strapped platform boots. (Note: Scary is good in this season of bold-stomping footwear extremes.) Between head and foot, though, the essential clothes story, as Jacobs put it, was about chopping "all the influences of the past" into some kind of modern Parisian fashion tartare.
Mostly, the layerings of thick waffle-knit sweater dresses over pants, flannel bustiers over knits, and oddly folded and pulled tailoring ended up looking never-before-seen. But those past influences were traceable, too. Jacobs' LV team is full of fashion brainiacs who, among other things, can draw a parallel between a punky red leopard spot by Stephen Sprouse for Vuitton in 2003, and the animal prints of Saint Laurent. Other nods in the haute direction could be seen in the wide velvet Schiaparelli-shocking-pink pants and Dior-referenced gray skirt-suits and peplums. Even the huge fur-trimmed parka hoods that looked like mini army igloos (call them the last word in weird nowness) were part-inspired by the shape of the knitted cocoon that YSL made in the mid-sixties.
Still, what really matters to this house is the bags. This season's offerings were also a bit transgressive, though playfully so. Some of them came in soft embossed vinyl (a daring departure for a leather-goods house), others in white fur, sprayed with the multicolored blowups of the monogram as famously reinvented by Takahashi Murakami. Still others came in slinky leopard-printed chain mail grafted onto classic LV-stamped leather. The standout: a big patent hand-held tote with a handle formed from a pair of golden headphones. Never mind the clothes, that's the one they'll be beating down the Louis Vuitton doors for the minute the first delivery drops.
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