Marc Jacobs Resort 2009

Our network partner, Fashion Indie, reported this morning on the Marc Jacobs Resort 2009 collection. His take on the collection (and the title to his post)? "Jewel-Toned Heart Adorned Kimono Wearing Gladiators from the 90’s Enslave Powersuit Wearing Women from the 80’s with Bows". Well, 'aint that a mouthful. The Marc Jacobs Resort 2009 collection was, indeed, a menagerie of cultural references (as usual, eh?) but one unified sentiment stood out to us.

Yves Saint Laurent, who passed away this weekend, pioneered the iconic look known as Le Smoking. That suit, in the mid-late 1960's, emboldened suiting for women and gave them, perhaps for the first time in a long time, a sleek, powerful silhouette. Now, it's impossible that Marc Jacobs could have anticipated Yves Saint Laurent's death (Jacobs can be perverse, not that much so) but it does strike us as one of those coincidences we might attribute to the collective unconscious.

Le Smoking, as everyone knows, single handedly gave way to the all-encompassing 'power suit'. The Le Smoking look, reinterpreted many times by Saint Laurent himself, encouraged strong shouldered blouses and jackets and androgynous trousers on every working woman from the 1970's clear through the 1990's. The Jacobs Resort collection, whether referencing the 1980's or 1990's has this silhouette in mind. Jacobs, for Resort, called up the power suit (with a definite nod to French style--also relevant) as a source of inspiration and this, to us, is a coincidence that only solidifies how unforgettable and irreplaceable are both Yves Saint Laurent and Marc Jacobs to fashion.