NYTimes.com: The Handbag Gets the Last Word

hiake · Oct 10, 2007

The Handbag Gets the Last Word

By CATHY HORYN

LOUIS VUITTON Nurses in see-through plastic coats inspired by the pulp-fiction covers of Richard Prince, who collaborated on the bags.

PARIS, Oct. 8 — At some point in the next 20 to 30 years, an astute collector of Marc Jacobs’s clothing will be sitting on a gold mine of information. Distance is required to appreciate the designs he has done for Louis Vuitton and his own label — the randomness, the appropriations, the superficial strafing of culture.

For his show in New York last month, which seems prescient for the way that it dealt with sex and transparency (certainly it ranks among the most beautiful renderings), Mr. Jacobs used as his starting point a celebrity-obsessed culture. This is also a favorite subject of the artist Richard Prince, who for the last several months has been working with Mr. Jacobs on a special edition of bags and other accessories for Louis Vuitton.

The handbag increasingly occupies a curious place in the hierarchy of fashion, at once kingpin and jokester. It drives sales and elicits contempt from those who believe it is responsible for a creative dumbing-down within the fashion industry. Nonetheless, as a visual form, the handbag keeps evolving and surprising us, and Mr. Jacobs has done more to influence that than anyone else.

Mr. Prince’s designs for various totes and satchels are striking and will probably exceed demand for the bags that Takashi Murakami did for Vuitton five years ago. Some are printed with the text of Mr. Prince’s jokes, and many have the LV logo partly blanked out, recalling the “inherently corrosive” quality of his work, as Roberta Smith recently put it in The New York Times in her review of the artist’s retrospective at the Guggenheim.

As for Mr. Jacobs, he seems more and more eager to provoke and to determine what it means to be a fashion maker at the beginning of the 21st century. He has at his disposal a wealth of personal experience, informing friendships with artists like Mr. Prince and John Currin, and the resources of Louis Vuitton. Those resources include money as well as craftsmen and, perhaps above all, the support of Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton and an art collector himself.

Yet Mr. Jacobs’s methods — indeed, his very success — seem to put him in conflict with the old values and assumptions in the industry. Many writers and observers deplore his appropriation of other designers’ work, including that of Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons, and are not assuaged by the argument that contemporary artists pilfer all the time. One British editor, after seeing the Vuitton show on Sunday, expressed weariness, saying, “It’s so hip that it hurts.”

Still, editors frequently complain that there is a dearth of energy and ideas in fashion, more often framing their complaint in terms of how clothes were made in the past rather than considering how new influences, like digital technology and marketing, are affecting our notions about fashion. So distance may be necessary to evaluate Mr. Jacobs’s significance.

Although the Vuitton show was much less coherent and graceful than his collection in New York, its confusion nonetheless served a purpose. There were nearly 60 outfits in the show, along with 12 voluptuous models dressed in plastic nurse uniforms — a reference to Mr. Prince’s paintings of pulp-fiction covers. And at some point (maybe outfit No. 13, a stripy, cartoon-colored top and skirt with a brooch and sheer nylon gloves), your brain went into sensory overload.

For all the effort and expense that went into the clothes — and the expense will strike some as wasteful — they seem to resist being analyzed, quantified and even worn. Maybe Mr. Jacobs, who appeared on the runway at the end of the show carrying a Louis vanity case with functioning video screens, intended the clothes only as a vehicle for selling the bags. It’s the “maybe,” though, that confounds people.

The French collections, which ended late Sunday night with a quiet, crowd-pleasing show by the American designer Ralph Rucci, have been wildly stimulating — fun, promiscuous, overwrought, empty, at times brilliant. Among the tangible ideas they produced are transparency and the illusion of transparency, bold floral and ombré-shaded prints, peaked or rounded shoulders, intense colors and “a total look.”

Alber Elbaz’s show for Lanvin on Sunday was masterful, a confident parade of dresses in pleated khaki and off-white cotton that expressed his modernist beliefs. The mainspring of the collection was a dress, a kind of cocoon, that was gathered in bias pleats of silk or cotton and belted at the waist. Sometimes it had a light matching coat. Yet Mr. Elbaz could just as easily convey the same attitude with a liquid-looking dress in black sequins.

When you see how Mr. Elbaz speaks directly to his customer, while still pushing his craft in new directions, he starts to seem more and more like the Saint Laurent of his time. By that, one means his changes are thoughtful and intimate, as if he has a knowledge of his customers’ wardrobes and is giving them what they don’t have. This season he offers a black silk pencil skirt, shown with a white cotton blouse that has ruffle jetting down the back, and some lovely air-filled caftans in vivid yellow or Kelly green silk.

To the more pragmatic gestures for day, Mr. Elbaz adds a strong dose of exoticism to the evening clothes. There are plain silk dresses with feathered fronts and others that whirl around the body in seductive jewel tones.

For Mr. Rucci, a slithery black jersey dress with a pavé of sequins at the hip and a taut, racerlike bodice signaled a turn. Instead of presenting his ready-to-wear and fall haute couture collections in New York, he decided to return to Paris.

Good move. The collection was solid, with day dresses in navy silk faille and creamy cotton that touched on the transparency theme, their sheer hems like dirty peeks through a window blind. Mr. Rucci covered the familiar territory of his double-faced crepe suits and hand-painted print coats. But some of his couture clothes showed a complete and delicious break from reality, notably a honey sable coat done in a grid pattern on chiffon and shown over silvery pajamas.

The Miu Miu show was adorable, if somewhat far-fetched. All those teacup skirts bouncing over slim minis or bloomer pants, their lines close to Balenciaga’s, only made you wonder what Miuccia Prada chose not to show. Still, there was an interesting decadent air about the clothes, a blend of papal red and Playboy bunny. You could see some of the dresses on waitresses in a superchic cocktail lounge.

MIU MIU A flaring silk mini over bloomers.

LOUIS VUITTON A sequin skirt worn with a shirt and pale green stockings.

RALPH RUCCI A silk jersey gown with sequins.

LANVIN A draped dress of black sequin.

LANVIN A cotton blouse with ruffles low on the back and a slim silk skirt.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/fashion/shows/09REVIEW.html
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Seems like LV is trying very hard to play the French card... Coloured sheer stockings, silted skirts... But Alber Elbaz for Lanvin is so hot... -inlove

Kaitou_Kid · Oct 10, 2007

the lv nurse thing is scary... but i love the lanvin!

The_Jelly · Oct 10, 2007

Ya, the nurse thing is kinda creepy.

NYTimes.com: The Handbag Gets the Last Word

hiake Vardøgr of da E.Twin

Kaitou_Kid Well-Known Member

The_Jelly NSFW? :P