Marc Jacobs confronts the internet’s tinfoil hat brigade

Last season, Marc Jacobs’ vision of a post-atomic glamazonia had models whipped-up in frayed monastic skirts, shredded column dresses, and hulking duvet jackets. It was an austere and threatening outlook, with Bella, Gigi, and Anok standing statuesque, as if a wind had battered fabric against their bodies. But, as Jacobs returns to the runway for AW22, the designer appears to be looking towards a more positive future, swapping a washed-out colour palette for baby pinks, turquoises, lavenders, and limes. 

The same built-up silhouette emerged, swamping the body in bulbous lumps and amorphous growths fashioned from wrap-around sleeves and bunched-up bustles, though it felt more embattled than nihilistic, with this season’s models in harsh undercuts and towering mary jane platforms. In an accompanying release, the designer quoted the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, saying “we share our choices in contrast to the ongoing brutality and ugliness of a world beyond our insulated but not impermeable walls. We have art in order not to die of the truth.” It’s hard not to read this in relation to the recession of Roe v Wade and the threat the decision has posed on other hard-won rights, like contraception and gay marriage. 

With Jacobs producing high-voltage fashion both despite, and in spite of, the news, the collection feels like a cue to take-up space. Sweaters were jumbo-stuffed and tenticular, sequined ball gowns were cut to Kawakubo-esque proportions, while handbags were so large they could probably double as a hammock. His fabrics ran the gamut of glass, paper, plaster, plastic, rubber, and denim, transforming headscarves into tinfoil hats – a nod perhaps to the conservative and conspiratorial internet thinking that has dominated mainstream politics – and wipe-clean, almost kinky Bo-Peep dresses. To see the rest of Jacobs’ AW22 collection, click through the gallery above.