Marc Jacobs Ready To Wear Fall Winter 2015 New York

The soundtrack for the Marc Jacobs Fall 2015 show began with a jolt. What followed was 11 minutes of 50 something looks on pale-faced, top knotted models practically scurrying up and down the runway. It was haunting, startling even, but it was purely Marc.

Every part of a Marc Jacobs show is important, so the mainly red venue guests stepped into made an impression. The famed red room from former Vogue editor Diana Vreeland came to mind, which puts the brain in an unapologetic fashion-for-fashion’s-sake sort of place. You think about opulence, you think about glamour, you think about excess. You think about Wintour before Wintour, about an innate and individual sense of style and of being a bit of a character — it was Vreeland after all who turned the Metropolitan Museum of Art into the fashion force we know it today.  And Jacobs delivered on every one of those points.

As the closing slot of New York Fashion Week, we've all come to expect fashion's former bad boy to wrap all of the trends from the week together, fold them into some artsy paper airplane, and send them right back to us. You want the furs other designers have been playing with? He's got them, one a black and white option that seemed perfect for the likes of Cruella DeVille. Elsewhere they were rendered into plush collars, maybe even a wallop of a handbag.  A bit of sparkle? To your heart’s content, the least of which was definitely not the set of sequined long dresses that came down the runway. And if a full-on sequined dress isn't your thing, maybe it's the lurex-laced long cardigans or even just a slinky, sleeveless, librarian-of-a-haunted-house dress in black with beaded panels that will do. Maybe even just the sheen from the bevy of slick accordion-pleated skirts that were there. Yes, those skirts. Oh mon dieu, the skirts.

Each skirt seemed to feature a blurred print. There were more than a few tartans and then a mustardy, murky floral. The waist always sat a tad high on the natural waist with the hem either falling neatly around mid-shin range — better to show off the slick patent leather boots with, my dear — or plunging to the ground. The pieces moved and sounded as if the fabric had been laminated, which would explain that sheen that they all sported, but one had to wonder how they felt, clacking around the legs. Then again, who cares what they feel like? This was fashion.

Jacobs seemed to have something to prove: that even sans the Vuitton card to play, he is still an anchor for the industry. And that he is. This frolic in dark, luxurious excess with its sinister veneer was a testament to that and at the same time a testament to the fact that it comes without the sacrifice of wearable pieces. And we haven't even discussed the most wearable and stunning of the bunch: the outerwear. The capes of glimmering hems, the double-breasted pink option with its imposing shoulders, neat wasp waist and flared skirt, the floral print returned in a brocade jacket with it's shapely leopard lapels.  It was dark, it was all excessive, and it was definitely a show.

Yes, Marc, in case you didn't already know, you're still an anchor.