WWD’s Bridget Foley scored a few minutes with Marc Jacobs before the Paris collections hit (we’re seething with envy) for an illuminating Q&A that ran the gamut from reality TV to luxury to accessibility. Luxury, per Jacobs, isn’t always about exclusivity. In this new world of instant online access, everyone can look at a collection moments after it walks. But the real takeaway? Rachel Zoe is a crazy stylist (his words, not ours).
WWD: This 24 hours a day life on camera do you think that it just may not be a good thing for fashion, or that fashion can make it a good thing?
M.J.: … I read this article about the Standard Hotel and how people were lining up all around the Meatpacking District because they could watch people undressing, having sex [through the windows] and all this stuff. And you know what? The hotel is full; people want to stay there. So a voyeur doesn’t mean anything without an exhibitionist. It takes all kinds.
Rachel Zoe is a good friend of mine. The reality show wouldn’t have been renewed for another season if people didn’t want to know that Rachel Zoe was this crazy stylist. So it is what it is.
On the concept of luxury and exclusivity, Jacobs says that luxury, these days, is about “the quality of the design and the quality of the make,” instead of about exclusivity. He goes on to say that fashion has become something of a spectacle. “We’re in a period where people are entertained by what they consider to be the real lives of people in different professions, etc. And fashion has also reached this kind of proportion like football or sport, you know — a spectator sport.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Q&A With Marc Jacobs [WWD]
