Marc Jacobs: The Clown

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He started out as a total dweeb.  Behind his glasses, pouchy stomach, and ill fitting clothes laid the mad scientist of fashion. He was the extremely talented, yet was the socially inept kid who sat in the front row of art history classes at Parsons with the dream to one day have his own fashion line. 

With success came recognition and praise. After Perry Ellis, came Louis Vuitton, came Marc Jacobs, came Marc for Marc Jacobs. His collections received mass acceptance and his fashion shows became the must attend events of the New York Fashion Week season. The press loved him, the celebrities loved him, and his bosses loved him. Marc Jacobs had single handedly heralded a new fashion frontier and his name became synonymous with a youthful, playfulness in fashion. 

 

Then came the drugs, the late night partying, the midnight rendezvous. Set in a bit of arrested development, the years that had passed since the days of his youth, the years where one would spend their time partying, the years he spent his time working, were finally upon him.  It became quickly clear that there was a problem. It’s never a good sign when Lindsay Lohan is on your speed dial. 

Following a path set for a teen screen queen, Marc hit rehab. He cleaned up. And for a second it seemed that everything was okay. A new Marc emerged. Thinner, hair kempt, tanned.  In place of the former pudgy designer laid a Tom Ford dopplegangler. Marc was clean. Marc was ready to be “reborn”. 

The earrings. The tattoos. The proposed reality show. The overexposure. The nude shots. The MySpace profile. The blue hair. The bad suits. The younger, dangerous boyfriend. The signs were prevalent.

The midlife crisis. 

With the onset of age comes wisdom in some and outright stupidity in others. Unfortunately, Marc Jacobs is experiencing the latter. 

If the reality series is more than a rumor, he will become a “celebrity” for the worst reason, for being “real”.  His collection will faulter under the scrutiny of the public eye. He will go from viable to liable in the eyes of corporate giant Louis Vuitton. And he will become the Paris Hilton of the fashion world (as if he hasn’t already).

He is quickly falling into the trap of celebrity, a place where no respectable person would want to be in the age of image destroying Star Magazine, Perez Hilton, and TMZ. He will be judged. He will be brutalized. And in the end he will be made an example of.  

We are seeing the end of a great designer. We are witnessing the stupidity of a man. We are saying goodbye to Marc Jacobs. And saying hello to the clown.