Old Marc Jacobs is in full swing, what if I wore a bubble necklace
Anna Wintour's cross necklace, my favorite shoes, and a wild face tool I had to buy?
Some things to wrap up New York Fashion Week…
Old Marc, The Stam Bag…It’s All Gaining Traction
Vintage Marc Jacobs is indeed on the rise and in the flesh. I wrote a piece a few weeks ago in which I interviewed Marc collector Rebecca Zeidenberg, who dove into her trove. She said we can expect an uptick thanks to the Marc and Sofia Coppola documentary. Now I can’t miss those fantastical uptown-lady, prim tinge of twee looks from the 2010s.
Brie Welch, who styled this year’s eBay Endless Runway show, which I hosted (!), threw a dark blue military Marc Jacobs in the mix. The piece ended up being my look, and the eBay team let me keep it. The jacket is stiff and erect, like it’s perpetually being called to attention. There’s velvet trim on the cuffs and regimental lace. The piece is of great quality. No deflated, flaccid cheapness here. Zeidenberg told me the jacket most likely hailed from the 2007 mainline, although Marc had been creating military jackets since 2002.
Earlier in the week, my friend Brooke Bobb at Harper’s Bazaar sent me a photo of her massive Stam bag that was trimmed with turquoise snakeskin. In the photo she sent, the piece gobbled up Bobb’s entire waist: the Stam bag is a funhouse mirror version of a coin purse, like a doll’s accessory that’s been demented into a ridiculous, human-sized jumbo bag.
Interview’s
looked like she had been plucked from some spring Marc 2011 runway, but she was actually wearing Look 10 from Anna Sui’s latest resort collection, giant Dior sunglasses (“very Paris Hilton”), and Poshmarked Chanel flats. There was a bit of Boro Park Hasidic thanks to that trachea-crunching buttoned collar and shin-skimming skirt, but also a bit of bitchy Blair Waldorf thanks to the most beautiful shade of girly pink, and, of course, the Taylore magic…the girl who burns it all to the ground and makes it her own with that thick slice of midriff. And what tied the whole look together? A Stam bag, of course!
I want to note that Taylore is consistently one of the best-dressed people I see at fashion week. She reinvents herself in a thoughtful, tender way each season. The looks, as referential as they may seem, are not a bit. Taylore’s outfits have too many current injections, too many creative liberties to ever veer “costume.” Yes, she does experiment with archetypes and eras, but this is real life, not an Instagram snap, and although the outfits do end up on the platform, she’s sweating in them.
Speaking of the 2010s….Bubble Necklaces?
What if I wore a bubble necklace? Post-2008 crash, keep-it-together corporate cog vibes? Wear that hulking baubled-up thing to the drab 9-5 and then to the 5-9 happy hour? Jenna Lyons-era J. Crew was famous for the bubble necklaces, which looked like a handful of candies dribbling down the chest. Those colorful Jawbreaker orbs arranged into a '30s-era Miriam Haskell more-is-more Great Depression tiered bib! Side note: There seems to be a connection between flagrantly over-the-top jewelry during an economic plunge?
J. Crew used the bubble necklace in their experiential 190 Bowery launch1, which included a rack of reworked pieces. They enlisted Lillian DiLustro aka Lillian’s Hair, who worked with creative director and head of design Olympia Gayot, to reimagine and combine eras of J. Crew in 2025. Here’s what I liked…J. Crew combined the time periods. Bubble necklaces, which were bought on resale platforms, were dissected, and the beads were used to trace the hems and sleeves. A 1980s barn jacket’s sleeves and collar got a leopard print fur trim that was originally plucked from a 2000s J. Crew jacket. There were also these fun reversible logo tube tops with slogans like “Friday” and “Happy Hour” that reminded me of my college years, yakking in the backyard of some house party. Super 120’s trousers that were sliced and diced into the tiniest mini skirts, so short they would make Ally McBeal blush.
I’ve seen the bubble necklace2 become fodder for the low-hanging fashion fruit of “remember when” comeback conversations, but I do genuinely love how J. Crew included it in their reworked collection. This is a funky reinvention, not a copy-and-paste from the past.
What I love most about this rack of fab is that there was a vocal nod to Lyons. (She was mentioned a handful of times during the walkthrough and the video!) I often find that brands or houses get nervous acknowledging recent creative directors…unless the creative director is dead? Why? Maybe it’s out of fear. Maybe it’s because a new creative director really does need to make their mark, and the only way to do it is to deep plane facelift the brand. I get it! Regardless, I’m all for referencing. Note: I love the banana motif at Chloé, which originated with Stella McCartney and was then reinterpreted by Phoebe Philo and now Chemena Kamali. Fun!
In a way, this whole mix and matching and referencing reminds me of the Kate Spade Contents (2001) book I wrote about, where the creators mixed a zillion other leather goods from other brands into their photographs without a marketing team’s care in the world. We don’t exist in a bubble of one brand! We are real people, and no one is trotting around in a solo look. Although J. Crew is one brand, its combination of eras leans into reality.