Fashion

Tuesday, September 11th, 2012

MARC JACOBS

“Young girls need to learn that sexiness isn’t about being naked,” declared Marc Jacobs after his eye-popping Op Art homage of a show that included, as he added, “a bit of everything that I love—lots of straight lines, T-shirts.” With their Cleopatra eyes and exaggerated Twiglet lashes (courtesy of François Nars), and teased side-part Mod hairdos or Beatles bowl cuts (Guido Palau), Jacobs models were clearly channeling sixties . The proportions, for a start, were deliciously clunky and off-kilter; the new longer-length midi skirts were hip-slung to reveal a flash of navel beneath a shrunken abbreviated jacket, for instance, and even the horizontally banded black-and-white heels curved and flared in a faintly disorienting new way. Jacobs’s brilliant jersey evening sheaths had the kinetic energy of a Bridget Riley Op Art painting—eddying swirls of bi-color blocking, like bull’s-eye targets refracted in a fairground mirror, or antic mixes of stripes and checks.