NEW YORK -- Marc Jacobs returned to the Lexington Avenue Armory here to show his spring-summer 2013 women's collection during New York Fashion Week, a runway full of boldly patterned pieces that were black and white and bold all over, and a 180-degree turn from the furry-hatted excesses of his fall-winter 2012 collection.
The inspiration: The show was a stripped-back, no-nonsense affair set against a backdrop of a dozen swinging, mirrored doors through which models made a beeline toward the end of an immense triangular white, vinyl-paneled runway, and the '60s-inspired clothes had a similar feeling of bare-bones beauty, as if Jacobs had somehow sequenced DNA of those groovy times and grafted it to 21st-century rootstock.
Photos: Marc Jacobs spring - summer 2013 collection
The look: That didn't mean there wasn't plenty to visually feast on in the '60s-influenced-by-the future collection; there was every manner of black-and-white stripe ranging from wide, referee-appropriate vertical bars to practically pencil-thin horizontals, gracing T-shirts, overcoats, suits, shoes, handbags and sequined shimmering pantsuits (there were also burgundy stripe and beige stripe versions of several key pieces). Although Jacobs' shows move at nearly the speed of light (the showing of the 45 looks -- and the finale -- clocked in at around seven minutes at the most), there was more than enough time to take in subtle details such as the scalloped necklines and skirt hems.