Marc Jacobs is now known as one of the most famous high end designers in the world. However, he faced huge controversy, which almost ended his career, when designing his historic Grunge collection for Perry Ellis SS93, in 1992. Although this collection now sees him as one of the founding members of grunge fashion in the wider community, at the time he faced huge backlash.
When designing the pieces for this show, Jacobs was required to dress Supermodel icons; Carla Bruni, Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks and Kate Moss. He chose to create a collection that was inspired by the current grunge look of every day street wear, elevating this style to new heights. However, although he is now known as one of the first designers to bring street wear on to the runway, pioneering the street wear phenomenon, he received huge critique when these looks were first revealed.
The New York Times described the collection as something that ‘Mixed everything up… a typical outfit looks as if it had been put together with the eyes closed in a very dark room’, which can completely sum up the feeling of dissatisfaction for the collection. Furthermore, for a major fashion house to sell the typical punk street fashion style at such a high price point was considered disgraceful, as it stripped the punk scene of all that it stood for.
This dissatisfaction was so high that the collection never actually made its journey from the runway, to production lines. After sending samples to punk icons Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, Jacobs was shunned as they revealed in an interview ‘We burned it. We are punkers and we didn’t like that kind of thing’. The results of this interview lead to Jacob’s being fired form his position at Perry Ellis, however he was awarded the CFDA women’s wear designer of the year for the same collection that caused this whole controversy.
In 2019, under his own brand, Marc Jacobs decided to give this collection a second life in ‘Redux; The return of Marc Jacobs’. In this lauch, he completely reproduced his previous Perry Ellis designs, even down to using the original materials and accessories. In his new launch, Jacobs dressed current super models; Gigi Hadid, Slick Woods and Binx Walton, and had his campaigns shot by Juerger Teller.
As you can see from the images above, this collection consists of dark colours, along with dramatic textures and layers. I will use these images as inspiration when creating costumes and accessories to accompany my final makeup look. Additionally, I love the contrast that is created between the darker garments, and lighter background, so will be sure to consider this when planning how to photograph my look.
Overall, within Punk fashion Marc Jacobs is an icon for being the first designer to introduce this style in to the luxury designer platforms. Although his ideas were not loved at the time, Marc Jacobs now has huge success from these collections. He is now, and forever will be renowned for his interpretations of popular culture, and credited for launching the gunge look of the 90’s.
Megan Hoff 