Marc by Sofia

Going to Marc Jacob.

Marc Jacobs.

-Marc Jacobs. -Marc.

This is Marc. Marc.

It's Marc Jacobs.

-Marc Jacobs. -Marc Jacobs.

-Marc Jacobs. -Marc-Marc... -Marc Jacobs.

...Jacobs. Marc's my friend. Marc Jacob.

Please welcome Anna Wintour

and Marc Jacobs.

-Marc, you-you share the couch. -Oh, yeah.

Yeah, you'll be sharing... sharing a chair

-this evening. Yes. -Okay.

Welcome. Welcome to the show.

It's really wonderful when you see someone like Marc,

whom I've known for so many years

and-and seen him struggle in the early days

and become such a success and, I think, such an inspiration

to so many young designers all over the world.

I remember my first cover. You put...

It was Michaela, an Israeli model,

and you put her in a yellow and white dress of mine.

It was back in the days of Perry Ellis,

and I was on the subway going to work,

and someone said to me,

"You've got a dress on the cover of Vogue.

What are you doing on the subway?"

They want you to take

-a horse and carriage? Yeah. -I was like, "Well..."

I mean, for-for me,

there's just so, like, so much fear in starting.

Like, again, it's like, I guess, a blank page.

And it's just like, I guess, for a writer, like,

"What do you write?" And for a musician,

"What do you, you know, sing or write in music?"

- All right, what have you got? - All right.

-So you're looking at the... -Needle-punch?

...needle-punch first.

So we tried-- this is a Shetland yarn,

and this is cashmere.

- We tried... - I love Shetland.

Can we get anything more in the-- like, what gauge is this?

This is all 7 gauge.

Yeah, maybe we should try a lower,

-like a 5 or a 3. -Yeah, yeah.

Like, so it's more s-sweatery.

Yeah, sure.

More sw...

Yeah, so we can see the stitch more

- and it's more... - Mm-hmm.

I was looking for something, like, sheer,

but not polybit, not nylon,

nothing-- not really a synthetic.

More like a wool that was, like, a fine gauge or a woolen nylon.

So something that looks more like wool but transp--

Like, so maybe between the size of the yarn, the gauge

and the, um, tension... but some-somehow

-where we could get a sheer feeling. -Right, right.

To, um...

To discuss...

...how nothing there is.

- Like... - The blank page helped.

The blank page...

-I feel for you. -Yeah, it's...

No, it's just the way it is.

I-I mean, I do-- I have faith that it will become something.

So like a good leather, men's-men's leather belt.

Like, not...

- Not like a '90s Milanese belt. - Yeah. Okay.

- That's kind of good. - Nice.

I mean, if we could do it finer. It's a little...

-I'd like it cleaner. -Mm-hmm.

- Cleaner. Okay. - Cleaner.

Yes, so just maybe too textured for you.

-And this is very... -But, but...

But the hand feel is good.

These are from Enrico, different weights.

So our objective was to get a smaller stitch size

and to get more structure,

- ideally with more filler. - Yeah.

These are all 18 gauge

and they couldn't really add much more filler.

With us, like, we-we get to the place,

or I get to the place where I'm sitting with everyone

and we're like, "Well, we've got to do something,

we've got to make some decisions about fabric."

And then there's just a lot of different conversations

that go on through the process, but I don't know

that-- I can't remember...

...a season or a show where we were, like, from the beginning,

we knew what we wanted to do and it was about

working towards achieving that.

Yeah.

Okay.

Sure?

-Yeah. -Okay.

I think the reality

of, um...

putting together the collection

and, you know, getting to the point

of the show is like... really

a series of ideas,

and some of them feel very, very strong or interesting.

'Cause it's a, it is a process.

So it's like, you know, for a few months,

like, all creative energy is focused on doing this thing.

You know, there could be, um,

a movie night with John and Rachel

that includes The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant

and it's, like, the first time I ever saw it

so it really visually was so stimulating

and, like, the insanity of it.

There was so much-- it was so loaded that it could--

like, of course it was gonna be a part

of what we were working on.

I mean, because it stimulated me.

This is the part where we try to figure out

what the models will be wearing on their legs.

Yeah. See, this is just like... -

So, there's either doing, like,

custom colors of a hosiery brand that we found...

Yeah. -...and then we have to figure out

what degree of sheerness or opaqueness we want

and then have the colors dyed to our specifications.

Or there-there was a plan, once upon a time,

to make them ourselves with our knitwear factories,

which we really loved that idea,

but there's very boring technical problems with that.

I mean, this was one of the Alex Katz painting

that we were really into, just how flat,

like, the black dresses were on all these women.

- I love her. - Yeah.

But this line, I just loved the texture of the skin,

that it was very powdery and flat and matte.

So this is... this is like mannequin leg, right?

This is our opaque, much more opaque...

The...

- Okay. Yeah. - Right?

It does look like mannequin leg. -Yeah. -Yeah.

But is there a problem with that one?

- No. - So you can dye that any color?

Yeah, it comes in white.

Yeah, so that's no problem at all.

-The really opaque one. -Yeah.

The real mannequin.

Like, this is a toile

that Joseph made, and it's, like, um,

-an idea, right? -Yeah.

-But it will become a much more sophisticated... -Right.

...interpretation of this idea.

You know, we're... continuing to make clothes

and study clothes as the fittings are happening upstairs

on the models and the castings and the music and...

Like, so, it's just, like,

that's all happening at the same time,

so, like, everything is delivered...

It's, like, very last minute.

I look over my shoulder at, like, other designers

and I think, like, "Well, the reason their work is so strong

"and so good and... is that they're so talented

"and they probably have it all decided from the beginning

"and then it's about, like, a really extraordinary,

"you know, um, execution of a single thought.

"And if I could be like them,

this is the way it would turn out, too."

When I look at my heroes in fashion,

like, if you look at Saint Laurent

and, you know, if you read the sort of history

of, like, that, like, Ballet Russe collection,

which was so extraord--

like how it was, like, in this fever of the night

that, like, you know, he draped all these fabrics on the stands,

or-- I think it was that one

- that he did that for. - Oh, wow.

I don't know, I can't remember what,

but it was one of his, like, legendary collections

that apparently...

You know, and it was just, like, a night of sketching

and, like, fabrics all over the...

And, it's like, that's what I want.

Like, you know, but it's just not our story.

Yeah, it doesn't have, like...

-Now, this, that cut generally fit... -Yes.

The fun part is how the hell do we fit this sleeve,

-this super wide sleeve... -Okay.

'Cause, see, I don't want it going into a narrow...

Ah, the top.

It can't be na-- It's got to be large,

the top of the sleeve head, you know, the sleeve.

-Ah. -So the body itself...

-Uh-huh, uh-huh. -...has to be wide up here.

-Yeah, yeah. -So we're gonna have to do

this very kind of wide arm part.

-Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. -Because most of the sleeves,

-they hang like this, right? -Yeah, I know, it's collapse.

-Exactly. Ah. -But what we want

-is to see this width up there. -Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

-So you just, from the side... -Side.

-...you've got all this tipping that way... -Mm-hmm.

-...and these tipping this way. -Mm.