show & tell

The Late Late Show: Why Marc Jacobs Is Never on Time

Marc Jacobs

Marc Jacobs is not in a hurry.Photo: Patrick McMullan

Marc Jacobs famously makes the fashion world wait for his New York shows to start. And he gets away with it every time because, well, he’s Marc Jacobs. But what causes the delays?

Season: Spring 2007.
Delay: Almost 70 minutes.
Cause: The clothes didn’t arrive until fifteen minutes after the 8 p.m. start time.
Highlights: This was Posh Spice’s first show.

Season: Fall 2006.
Delay: Two hours.
Cause: Marc’s shoes were late arriving from Italy.
Highlights: Layering for hoboes. Oversize knits, dresses with pants, and the return of grunge, all at the same time.

Season: Spring 2006.
Delay: Two hours.
Cause: The clothes again.
Highlights: The Penn State Blue Band kicking off the show.

Season: Fall 2005.
Delay: One and a half hours.
Cause: It wasn’t Beyoncé, Jay-Z, or Debbie Harry. One Jacobs employee finally confessed the clothes weren’t there yet.
Highlights: Controversial podlike skirts in muted colors.

Season: Spring 2005.
Delay: 45 minutes.
Cause: A Marc Jacobs show beginning within an hour of the scheduled time? No excuse necessary.
Highlights: Gemma Ward walks first, followed by shrunken cardigans and traditional patterns.

Season: Fall 2004.
Delay: Almost two hours.
Cause: Unknown. The only thing the PR crew offered were directions to nearby coffee stands. No one left, of course.
Highlights: Karolina Kurkova’s boob and Gisele’s black-and-blue appearance (she fell ten feet from a tree while playing with her pooches).

Season: Spring 2004.
Delay: One hour, twenty minutes.
Cause: The clothes.
Highlights: Celebs (Swank, Peet, and Diddy) sweating just as much as the standing-room-only crowd.

Season: Fall 2003.
Delay: 84 minutes.
Cause: None supplied.
Highlights: The tributes to Courreges and Pierre Cardin.

Season: Spring 2003.
Delay: 45 minutes.
Cause: Again: Just 45 minutes? We’ll take it.
Highlights: André Leon Talley’s wide-open fly and the Post’s highly criticized decision to print the snapshot.

Season: Fall 2002 .
Delay: More than an hour.
Cause: The clothes.
Highlights: Fran Drescher wandering the catwalk and begging for a flashbulb to go off.

Season: Spring 2002.
Delay: Who remembers? The show was held on September 10.
Cause: No one’s nitpicking this one.
Highlights: Jacobs’s was the last show held in September 2001; the rest were canceled. Footage from his party shows revelers with the WTC in the background.

Season: Fall 2001.
Delay: Lost to the mists of time. But we’re sure there was one.
Explanation: Probably the clothes.
Highlights: PETA pelted a fur-clad model with rubber “maggots.”

Season: Spring 2001.
Delay: About an hour.
Cause: Diddy was seat-hunting for his bodyguard on the bleachers of Jacobs’s Soho show, which was held on a basketball court.
Highlights: Jacobs unabashedly embraced the taffeta and cocktail hats that defined the eighties.

Season: Fall 2000.
Delay: One hour.
Cause: The clothes.
Highlights: Tim Burton nursing a bottle of Jack at Jacobs’s famous after-party.

Season: Spring 2000.
Delay: This might have been the only show that was nearly on time.
Cause: Jacobs flew to Paris the next morning at 6 a.m. to style LVHM looks.
Highlights: Lisa Marie Presley’s bodyguard manhandled Anna Wintour. A Vogue rep told papers, “[The bodyguard] pushed her, and she pushed him back. She then proceeded backstage to congratulate Marc Jacobs.” — Jocelyn Guest

The Late Late Show: Why Marc Jacobs Is Never on Time