Jacobs Makes His Mark With Marilyn Manson And Courtney Love

Marc Jacobs has a new campaign for his AW16 collection and it features musicians Marilyn Manson, Courtney Love, Missy Elliot, and Annie Clark aka St Vincent. Also featured is model of the moment Cara Delevingne and actor Sissy Spacek. Under the photos Marc Jacobs has long captions of his relationship with the star, how he met them and why he chose them for the collection.

Marc Jacobs
Courtney Love Image by DazedDigital

Marc Jacobs features a shot of Courtney Love in high chunky platforms, a feathered coat and a provocative pose where she has arranged the skirting of her dress to fall behind her spread apart legs. Jacobs says Love was one of his inspirations for his 1992 grunge show at Perry Ellis.

“With my abundance of respect for Courtney Love’s musical contributions to grunge/rock culture and her status as this sort of, Grunge Goddess, it was her mesmerizing and extraordinarily moving portrayal of Althea in the film, The People vs Larry Flynt that simultaneously broke my heart and won my love” writes Marc Jacobs.

Jacobs describes the appeal of Courtney Love and how her grunge icon status was appealing to him.

“I remember being quite taken by her deep, thorough knowledge of and voracious appetite for fashion and music. There has always been a genuine allure about Courtney that I continue to admire. The way she’d scream her lyrics from that gash of a red mouth to the hard rocking, wailing sounds of Hole. She was then and remains now, for me, the ultimate divine mess in a dress” writes Marc Jacobs

Marc Jacobs
Marilyn Manson Image by DazedDigital

Marc Jacobs met Marilyn Manson on Halloween in Los Angeles in 1996.

“It was after meeting him that I started listening to his music- in large part because I was intrigued by his persona and curious about his perverse and incredible intellect” writes Marc Jacobs

For the Jacobs show in Autumn 2011, Marc Jacobs used Manson’s song The Beautiful People at full volume while the models strutted the runway.

“In direct contrast to the outward hideous beauty of Manson’s stage persona is his instinctive, inherent intelligence and understanding of what matters. These days more so than ever I am reminded of Manson’s interview in the documentary film, Bowling for Columbine and his response to a question asking what he would say to the kids and Columbine community in the wake of the tragedy that took place in 1999. His response was, “I wouldn’t say a single word to them. I would listen to what they have to say, and that’s what no one did”” Write Jacobs.

Marc Jacobs
Cara Delevingne Image by DazedDigital

Cara Delevingne is featured with her hair slicked into finger waves and she crouches in a suit with a large bow and huge platform shoes. Jacobs praises her “boundless energy”, “generosity” and “professionalism”.

“Every once in a blue moon I am fortunate enough to meet a model with a personality so huge it almost overshadows even the strongest of looks — the most dramatic fashion” writes Jacobs of Delevingne.

St Vincent, aka Annie Clarke, is also included who is the girlfriend of Cara Delevingne.

Marc Jacobs
St Vincent Image by DazedDigital

“I was really taken by comments Annie made in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine where she described queerness as a transcendence of sexuality and as a ‘banner’ for being ‘other’, it was thoughtful, relevant and poignant” writes Jacobs.

However it is not only her political correctness when talking about her sexuality that Jacobs admires about Annie Clark.

“There’s a certain maturity that’s inherent in Annie that transcends her age and while her music is a direct reflection of her intellectual curiosities and musical prowess, it was when I had the privilege of meeting Annie in person that I experienced her magnetism” writes Jacobs.

More and More fashion shoots and campaigns need to stand out and be original in a society full of images. Jacobs has created a distinctive campaign AW16 collection by choosing darker icons of the nineties and paring them with names of the moment to stay current. The clothes are sexy, dark and elaborate as are the photographs, this campaign is intriguing. By adding lengthy comments under the images naming the celebrity modelling the clothes and providing a background of the person and their relationship to the designer, Jacobs has added a personal touch and a human face as well as a narrative to his collection.