Diatribe Against Sacks #158

Dear Reader(s),

So I haven’t posted in a long time because my room burned down, and then I was going to do my first post with before and after photos of my room, and a lot about how deeply, deeply ironic it was that I, of all people, had to lose my stuff, because most of it was part of a vast and varied vintage collection, and I had like 120 dresses or something, as well as stuff that I can never, ever get again, and certainly not for that price because eBay is totally through the roof with the prices right now, like who else is buying these early 1940’s dresses and bidding them up because I certainly never see anybody wearing them, but whatever. Most people could just go to H&M and replace their stupid clothing, but I would have to spend my time looking in attics abandoned during the Depression.

The point is, we had a fire, which is also what I always use as an excuse now for not doing something, as in “Well, of course I haven’t sent out that form yet- we had a fire.”, but the insurance people are going to fix up my mother’s house that I shouldn’t have been living in anyway since I am 24, and they are also giving me a really, really large amount of money for all the things I lost. So even though I will never be able to get back some of the things I miss very much, I guess I can at least afford some overpriced replacements. (Though there are some items that make me pretty bitter when I think about them, but more on that later.)

So I do promise a post about fire and fashion soon, but, in the meantime, I’m just going to review this Marc Jacobs collection Naira pointed out to me. This is for his more expensive line, not the Marc by Marc line which was also really ugly. It’s supposed to be neutrally slouchy and vaguely vintage inspired like all his collections are now, but I don’t know why he bothers with these vintage references anymore.

The above look is a good example of that. The jacket kind of looks like 1940’s men’s leather jacket, and the pants kind of look like a Katherine Hepburn-ish 40’s pleated pant, but these looks have been echoed throughout the 80’s and 90’s and the pants, at least, everyone is doing now because people are trying to get away from skinny jeans.

It’s very hard to do “slouchy” as a look, as it often just looks sloppy and shapeless, which is kind of the theme for this collection. The look to the right, with the hideous floppy gray pants and the muted sweater that says "HARDCORE" for some reason (wouldn't it be more accurate/funny if it just said BORING or perhaps BLAH...?) is accompanied with a mauve bag. Everything has about as much color and creativity as the chairs you wait in at the bank. To me, it's unfathomable that you could design anything you wanted, out of any materials, having access to every resource in the world, and then come up with this.

What’s annoying about Marc Jacobs is that he seems to be consciously rejecting the colorful, playful exuberance of his earlier collections by designing so many beige woolen sacks, but it’s not like he’s being revolutionary. Everyone’s designing sacks and pleated pants in muted colors. In his effort to change, he’s just become like everyone else. Also, he’s supposed to be designing like three different lines so he probably doesn’t do anything anyway, except for Zone diet and talk about his newfound love of health, over-tanning and closely cropped hair, ie, looking like a stereotypical gay.