What to Watch After Watching Marc Jacobs

Leaving Marc Jacobs’s fashion show at the Park Avenue Armory Monday night I felt a strong urge to rewatch “Clockwatchers,” Jill Sprecher’s 1997 comedy about a quartet of misfits adrift in vapid office jobs.

“Clockwatchers” is a funny little time warp, like finding a can of Surge in the hinterlands of your fridge. The characters also wear some all-time great outfits, plucked by the costume designer Edi Giguere: geometric V-necks that you’d swear were Prada, turquoise camis and pink tartan midi-skirts. “Clockwatchers” is a snapshot of that period in corporate style before Banana Republic beige took over.

It was the style of “Clockwatchers” — like RISD grads resigning themselves to become low level typists — that came to mind as I watched Jacobs’s show. The time frame aligned. Placed on our seats were show notes with a “credits and receipts” section, spelling out his references. It was heavy on the mid-to-late ’90s: Jacobs’s 1995 collection, Helmut Lang ’95, Prada ’96, Marc Jacobs ’98. (The soundtrack was Bjork’s “Jóga,” a song from … 1997.)

Jacobs took it back to this period with tweed skirts in extra-long, long and medium, twin sets in diagonal plaids, demure button-ups of soft pinks and blues and even scrunchies. My colleague Vanessa Friedman has a full review. Read it, then watch “Clockwatchers.” Remain in the ’90s for a while.

Two more time-warpy viewing recommendations to help you stay there: In his credits, Jacobs name-checked X-Girl, a puckish skatewear label co-founded by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth. On YouTube there’s footage of a guerrilla runway show, orchestrated on the streets of SoHo by then-couple Sofia Coppola and Spike Jonze in 1994. The X-Girl buzz fizzled, but Jonze’s bed head endures in digital form.

The show notes also cited Stüssy, the seminal streetwear label. I implore you to watch this zippy BBC documentary on it from the ’90s. The droll manner in which the founder, Shawn Stüssy (rocking the meanest of pre-Y2K goatees), describes the collection as “pants and shirts and jackets and hats” is worth it alone. But the clip describes Stüssy’s clients as “every bit as demanding as Chanel wearers.” A reminder that streetwear and high fashion have never not been in conversation.

Other things worth knowing about:

Making my way out of Jacobs’s show, I ran into Ralph Fitzgerald, the warm-as-a-British-granny tailor that I profiled a few weeks back. He told me that the article sent his business into another stratosphere, so my apologies for my role in extending his wait list. Last night he wore a double-breasted overcoat with covered buttons, a dressy tweak that I am surprised hasn’t been tried more often. And my editor will take me to task if I don’t mention that Fitzgerald smelled great — like a fresh, crisp soap, perhaps a sandalwood.
Earlier Monday, the Jil Sander designer Simone Bellotti stopped by our offices wearing a fantastic nylon jacket that wasn’t Jil but L.L. Bean! He said he bought it on a trip to Japan, as it came from a line made by the company’s Japanese license holder. Coincidentally, L.L. Bean will be selling some of this normally only-available-in-Japan line in American stores and online next month. Sadly, that collection doesn’t include a nylon jacket. For that, book a flight.
One last funny tidbit from the Marc Jacobs show: In the corner of the cathedral-scaled Armory was a table with a computer-paper-size painting atop it. The security guard said it was by Anna Wintour. Does the Vogue empress have a side gig as a painter? No. The guard meant Anna Weyant.
More on the fashion movie front: Miu Miu, Prada’s sprightly younger sister brand, is nosing into New York Fashion Week, with a screening of Mona Fastvold’s short film “Discipline.” The showing is part of its Women’s Tales initiative, in which it invites female directors to grapple with ideas about vanity and femininity. The screening is tomorrow in the East Village but is, unfortunately, invite only, though the movie will be available for all to view on Mubi starting Friday.
And finally, there’s a new classic with a twist from the company that practically invented the term. J. Crew asked five New York designers to riff on its roll-neck sweater, a perennial staple from Montauk to Martha’s Vineyard. The best of the lot, if you ask me, is courtesy of Eckhaus Latta: a baggy oatmeal number with splotches of red and newsprint gray.

Some closing thoughts on the Zara Bowl

Many of you wrote to me aghast about Bad Bunny wearing Zara at the Super Bowl. I, too, was surprised that the singer chose the fast fashion behemoth over something more indie. But it is in keeping with Zara’s repeated attempts to be taken seriously as a fashion agenda-setter, not just where you go to buy $5 T-shirts. To its credit, Zara has been very early at getting reputable rising brands for collaborations — Soshiotsuki, Ludovic de Saint Sernin and Studio Nicholson among them. The Spanish juggernaut has the money to buy its way into pretty much anything, but the replies to my original article on the Super Bowl reflect that it may still have a ways to go to be taken seriously.

The Indelible Fit of the Day

Speaking of Bad Bunny, when I chased down the stylist/DJ Matthew Mazur to get a photo of him, he said he was still feeling the halftime show when he got dressed.