In Front of the Pink House at Marc Jacobs

“What if I don’t get it?”

This was my first thought before Marc Jacobs. The designer is known for making big statements with big production, and while his clothes never come second to set design they are typically required to exist and tell a story in tandem.

It always means something. Remember when Super Mario clouds hung low over the front-row-only seats? Or the season before that, when Nicole Phelps described the set as a “bombed-out beach”? But I wasn’t there. I’d never seen a Marc show in person until last night. I was intimidated. What if I didn’t get it?

The mental note-taking started immediately: there is pink, plush shag carpeting covering the stadium-style seating; there is a giant pink house in the middle of the room. Cue anxiety — I should immediately recognize the symbolism: Our house…in the middle of the street? No, too kitchy. But the carpet’s kitchy. Is this a commentary on kitch? Just find your seat.

With every seat came a set of headphones and no instructions other than common sense. I stared again at the pink house. Bubblegum? Barbie? Pleasantville, USA? 

There was something sterile about the gravel surrounding it. This wasn’t a perfect little home — no white picket fence, no freshly cut lawn. No mailbox, no sign of life. No windows. With the headphones locked over my ears and loud violins that began to play, I felt claustrophobic.

As the models trudged out a voice started speaking as though it had been auto-tuned through a filter to make a human’s voice sound robotic. The girls were in military gear, their walk was a march, and this strange voice started giving even stranger commands.

He wanted one of the girls to go into the bedroom upstairs. “Jump on the bed,” he said. It was a lot of “do this, do that.” He never referred to them as women, always “the girls,” and a few were specified by their looks: “the one with the gap between her teeth.”

The clothes were good, that part I knew. But Lynn Yaeger sat in front of me, and she’s a writer; I wanted to know what she was thinking. I leaned forward to peek like I was cheating on a test. She covered her paper. I slinked back.

The clothes can’t be described any more eloquently than Leandra’s morning review. She pointed to the military theme, commented on the whimsy, and described the “utilitarian pockets” as “delicately frivolous ornaments.” She wrote that it was a collection of “smart clothes.” This I saw with my own eyes, and I agree.

But what I felt was unease. Something wasn’t right. Who were these girls? Were they part of the army or inside the windowless house? Was the army protecting them, or was it surrounding them? Over the past few months the topic of war has been especially top of mind. Themes of militia were apparent here, and perhaps war’s effect on society, but what exactly was Marc saying?

What was it that I didn’t get?

That we live in a pink gum-bubble of false security? Or is the pink a filter – an optical euphemism for shading that which we don’t want to clearly see?

I wish I’d recorded the voice. There was something I must have missed. All I know is that the best shows are supposed to leave you with a feeling that lingers.

Images via Style.com