Marc Jacobs has a Book….A Picture Book
For me, fashion ads are about much more than the clothes that are pictured. I’ve always believed that a great fashion photograph doesn’t just try to sell you, but instead it leaves you with a memory.
Marc Jacob’s advertisements have done just that. For many moons, Marc and Juergen Teller have been collaborating on advertising projects. The rawness of Teller’s imagery was a breath of fresh air when the two first started working together in the era of blue jeans and supermodel supremacy. His ads depicted strange worlds, with kooky people doing weird and mundane things in rooms filled with negative space. These images have been a staple part of fashion magazines for years and counting. These unique photos, a style all their own, have been compiled into 576 pages in “Marc Jacobs Advertising 1998-2009″.
The book brings together a selection of advertisements from all the campaigns. To most people, the ads and situations in them are a little baffling and nonsensical, which of course is a hallmark of the designers mystique (really, you either “get it” or you totally don’t.) But besides all the randomness, we see that these otherwise perfect people are actually as bizarre or normal as us. The collection of images that pokes fun at sophisticates and materialism while quietly contributing to fashions significance to the visual arts. Take, for example, Victoria Beckham coming out of over-sized Marc Jacobs shopping bags, a clever commentary on her obsession with designer clothes.
I can see this becoming a new aged textbook in a few decades, Aesthetic Anthropology majors using it to ponder why a pair of pudgy twins in disguise seemed like the height of chic in 2005.
