On my Marc

The Bill Cunningham documentary left me buzzed on the exuberance, frivolity and sheer pleasure of fashion. It also left me feeling a little sad. To cheer myself up, I went to Marc by Marc Jacobs.

I didn’t have plans to try anything on, I just wanted to look. But somehow I found myself in the dressing room with four dresses.

A few years ago I would’ve said, Yeah, Marc Jacobs, love what he does, but for me? Not so much. I put him in the category of miniskirts, shorts, hair poufs, hot pink tights. I felt they were awesome…but unwearable unless you were under thirty and coltish. But somehow, as Marc has grown up, so have his designs. The first dress I noticed was this one, from a few years ago.

It was exactly what I was looking for but couldn’t seem to find: a dress I could wear with heels or flats; it worked with a chunky sweater, tights and boots in the winter, flip flops in the summer. It was a pretty dress that fit well and almost looked like it came from a thrift shop…but not quite. It was girly and appropriate and feminine without being over the top and aggressively sexy. But, it was also out of my price range. That’s okay, I reassured myself, I’ll find something similar for less. I tore out the picture and put it in my wallet as inspiration. But I couldn’t find anything like it. Sure, there were lots of dresses with the same look but it felt like something was wrong with each of them: this one was cut too low, this one was too short, I hated the material on this one. By the time I resigned myself to spending money for the dress, it was gone.

Then I noticed something strange. I’d like a friend’s coat, admire a shirt, pick up a pair of shoes or some sunglasses and they’d be Marc Jacobs. And then, recently, I got two of his dresses at a sample sale. They were floaty, the material was beautiful, the perfect weight of silk.

And they fit perfectly.

Ridiculously perfectly.

Like a glove.

Like Marc Jacobs had cut them just for me.

They fit that well. They didn’t need to be shortened or taken in in the bust or let out in the hip. The waist hit where my waist is and those weird colors didn’t look weird on me.

What was going on? Nothing ever fits me. It’s why Gustavo, my tailor, and I are on a first name basis.

Was this just a fluke? I was curious. Which is how I ended up in the dressing room with four dresses. I wanted to see. And these fit just like the others. How they were on the hanger, how I envisioned them in my head, how they felt when I put them on, how they fit and how they looked were all the same.

That never happens.

Now, the big question: how am I going to find the money to get them home?