Scene setting: Just days after Tommy Hilfiger installed a giant ocean liner in the Park Avenue Armory, Marc Jacobs transformed the mammoth art space into a giant white box with seats in the round. White-washed floorboards set a cold, eerie feel, which would become all the more apparent once the procession began.
Mood board: Jacobs credited the Japanese musician Keiji Haino, who’s known for the concept of ma – ’the haunted spaces between the notes’ – as a key thought for the collection. Sure enough, set to the ringing of a single bell, which increased in frequency and pace as the show went on, models donning sky-high, patented platform boots, striped stockings and a myriad of gothic, Victorian-influenced garb stormed the runway with heavy black make-up and hair done in tightly worked finger curls.
Best in show: Incredibly theatrical pieces such as long overcoats festooned with embroidery and sequins, oversized patchwork fur coats and stoles exaggerated in shape, voluminous ball gown skirts in prints made out of the shapes of hands and intricately woven lace dresses that hung delicately off the figure, were just some of the evocative highlights of Jacobs’ dark fantasy.
