Marc Jacobs' Studied Awkwardness

Every season I say the same thing about Marc Jacobs: he's a master of the fashion moment. This season Jacobs proved me right again.

It's an awkward time for fashion — what with luxury items like handbags costing the equivalent of small cars and easy knock offs ringing in at a couple of dollars. A consumer can get confused. In his strange and somewhat daunting presentation, Jacobs perfectly captured that all too familiar uneasy sensation that sometimes accompanies fashion moments, that feeling of not knowing what is appropriate.

Jacobs kept the guests at his evening show waiting two hours and ten minutes. Awkward. Then, when the show started at 11:10 pm, he did a surrealist trick, beginning at the end and unfurling the show backwards so that he came out first and took a bow, the models all trooped down the runway as if in a finale. Awkward. The clothes were purposefully awkward, too: shorts peeking out of filmy, deconstructed half slips, sequined disco dresses layered over sheer trousers and satin bras, mismatched gloves, "too small sandals" (literally, that's the look). Ouch. Awkward.

Taking a page from surrealist designer Elsa Schiaparelli, Jacobs toyed with his accessories, too, making wedges out of akimbo heels and mocking fashion's essential sunglasses with paper cut-out "E.T. four eyes" glasses. Some models had mini bicycle wheels or tiny hats perched on top of their teased out bouffant hairdos. The clothes were deconstructed, or, in some cases, dresses were literally described in the line sheet as "two thirds of a satin gown" — surely a spoof on certain celebrities who venture out on the town with half of their wardrobe missing. You have to give Jacobs credit for pushing the envelope and challenging existing dress codes — or the lack thereof.