Marc by Marc Jacobs Fall 2009

Previously, we analysed the color schemes of all seasons of Marc by Marc Jacobs and here is a quick revision about how to forecast Marc by Marc Jacobs' color scheme.

So, we cannot find out what’s in Marc Jacobs’ mind, but we might predict the color scheme of the next Marc by Marc Jacobs’ collection, with some seemingly reliable evidence from the past seasons:

Step 1: Achromatic is a must.

Step 2: Red and blue too!

Step 3: Trace back the color scheme at four or five years ago( Remember the cycle of color scheme, huh? ).


Step 4: Check out the lower part of last season’s fashion show to seek implication of the coming collection’s color scheme.

Step 5: Organize the results from the above steps and fit into a color theory in design application, add a few accent colors as you like.

Here I use the Harmony of color theory for my forecast color combo.
-- Agreement of feeling is easier when advancing or receding qualities of hues, values and intensities convey similar moods, giving enough variety for interest but avoiding boredom or conflict.


And here is my color scheme forecast for Marc by Marc Jacobs Fall 2009, base on our research:

Trial-and error:
I tried different colour combinations on each outfit and fine tune the hue, saturation, tints and shades etc. among the whole collection by using the color theories that are commonly applied in Marc by Marc Jacobs, for details please refer to conclusion post.







Here is the final collection that I picked out from the trial version:


To match with Marc Jacobs passion to art, I try to match the color in a more dramatic and artistic way by using patterns, but at the same time keep a balance with the commercial nature of the brand by adding achromatic or neutral color items to the collection.

Marc Jacobs and contemporary art

Left: Marcel Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q., 1919, one of Jacob's favourite paintings.
Right: detail from Louis Vuitton runway, Fall 2004
Does he inspire by the painting?

Marc Jacobs is known for his sartorial fashion interpretations of trends in contemporary art.

The story begins where there’s one day in 2002, Jacobs was distractedly flipping through a christie’s auction catalog when he came across Kilimnik’s Mary Calling Up a Stone 1996, a portrait of a dark-haired young woman. For some reason, the canvas called out to the designer. Who’d never purchased a work of art before. Soon he’s travelling to international art fairs. Befriending dealers and artists. Quotes of Fashion Statements by Marc: Jacobs isn't looking for deeper resonances to his new Edward Gorey vision. "It's just what turns me on," he says. "I am not waking up, reading The New York Times, and then putting that into my collections. I am not holding up a mirror to the world. I don't believe that's what fashion is about. It's about fantasy." …. "Oh, I always think it's silly to talk about themes and inspirations," said Jacobs with engaging frankness. "The collection's just always about this youthful, angelic, idyllic army. It's comprised of a lot of things—big plaids, layered woolliness, gangly stockings—but really, it's all about how people will break it down and wear it in their own way." Marc Jacobs’ brain is feed on art, fashion, music and encounters. Some Marc Jacobs' favourite Contemporary Artist: American contemporary artists

• Elisabeth Peyton ---who depict people's inner lives with a strange beauty

Portraits of Sofia Coppolar and Marc Jacobs by Elizabeth Peyton, you can see the close relationship between the designer, his friend and the artist.

• Steven Sprouse (graffiti bag)
• Richard Prince
• Rachel Feinstein

• Jeff Koons
• Jeffrey Deitch
• Damien Hirst
• Martin Kippenberger
• video work of T.J. Wilcox
• Edward Gorey

Japanese artists

• Yayoi Kasama草間彌生
• Takashi Murakami村上隆

Teamed up with Japanese artist Takashi Murakami to produce the accessories for the spring–summer 2003 collection of Louis Vuitton.

Together with Murakami, Jacobs produced “eye love,” a collection of handbags that merged Vuitton’s traditional monogrammatic canvas—its beige and brown motif that included shapes of diamonds, stars, and flowers along with the company’s initials, LV—with Murakami’s modern, colourful pop-art graphics.


The “eye love” handbags became instant collector’s items.

Here is a video about Jacobs' Craze for contemporary art

Art Auctions:
After fashion show he regenerates his creative strength by watch contemporary art works, go to auctions and building up his art collection and prepare for his next fashion collection.
Encounters, Friends

On the cover of Interview magazine, Marc Jacobs, styled to look like Warhol. So, is Jacobs appropriating popular culture and turning it into fashion, as Warhol turned popular culture into art? Jacobs plays this down: "I'm just me. I do my thing," he says. "Who cares what the references are? I hate references, they're boring. If a girl wants to wear it, then it's valid.

It is said that Marc Jacobs' living room is accented fluffy white life-size sculpture of a sheep (the work of Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne) … From where he was sitting on the sofa, Jacobs could see works of art by Andy Warhol, Francis Picabia, Georges Braque, John Currin, Elizabeth Peyton, David Hockney, Ed Ruscha, and Richard Prince.



Owing to his craze on Contemporary Art, we can always see his influence from contemporary art on LV, Marc Jacobs and Marc by Marc Jacobs' collections as well!

Marc Jacobs' Inspirations

inside Marc Jacobs' studio

Marc Jacobs’ brain is feed on art, fashion, music and encounters.

Contemporary Art:

American contemporary artists

Elisabeth Peyton

who depict people's inner lives with a strange beauty

Steven Sprouse (graffiti bag)

Richard Prince

Rachel Feinstein

Jeff Koons

Jeffrey Deitch

Damien Hirst

Martin Kippenberger

video work of T.J. Wilcox

Edward Gorey

Japanese artists:

Takashi Murakami村上龍

Marc Jacobs did a collaboration project with Murakami for LV.

Yayoi Kasama草間彌生

Art Auctions:

After fashion show he regenerates his creative strength by watch contemporary art works, go to auctions and building up his art collection and prepare for his next fashion collection.

Encounters, Friends

Sofia Coppolar

Marc Jocob's best friend and muse, Sofia Coppola.
"She is young and sweet and beautiful," Marc Jacobs has said. "The epitome of this girl I fantasize of."
On set, Coppola sports a tomboy's jeans and designer sweaters; off, she wears girlish clothes that perfectly suit her gamine-like frame—baby-doll dresses, ballerina flats, and when the Academy calls, a Marc Jacobs column gown.

Movies

the gothic oeuvre of director Tim Burton

video work of T.J. Wilcox

(This Season)September 2005

the sullen Violet Parr from the Incredibles

Music

Fans

Bryan Boy—Marc designed a handbag name after his super fans called the BB bag.

www.bryanboy.com/

Grunge Look:

Miscellaneous:

He has a habit of asking everything in multiple colours. Thus, every pair of shorts and jackets appear at least in six different colours, but not all would be shown.

Inspired by macaroons, Yayoi Kasama’s polka dots, bottle tops or even plates; he and his design team were laying pastel leather dots on a bag model for hours to examining the design.

Quotes of Fashion Statements by Marc:

Jacobs isn't looking for deeper resonances to his new Edward Gorey vision. "It's just what turns me on," he says. "I am not waking up, reading The New York Times, and then putting that into my collections. I am not holding up a mirror to the world. I don't believe that's what fashion is about. It's about fantasy."

…. "Oh, I always think it's silly to talk about themes and inspirations," said Jacobs with engaging frankness. "The collection's just always about this youthful, angelic, idyllic army. It's comprised of a lot of things—big plaids, layered woolliness, gangly stockings—but really, it's all about how people will break it down and wear it in their own way."

References:

Bibliography for "Marc Jacobs: what's art? What's fashion? A business artist blurs the boundaries"

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1285/is_5_38/ai_n25470231

Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton

http://www.amazon.com/Marc-Jacobs-Louis-Vuitton-Full/dp/B00104Z8DO

Style.com

American Vogue September 2005

Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton (2007)

http://www.amazon.com/Marc-Jacobs-Louis-Vuitton-Full/dp/B00104Z8DO

Bridget Foley (2004). Marc Jacobs. New York: Absouline.

Conclusion

After analyzing the color scheme of all seasons of Marc by Marc Jacobs collections form Spring 2001 to Fall 2009, we find out some color theories and principles that Marc Jacobs might apply on the brand.

1. Achromatic Color/ Neutral Colors


Achromatic are black grey and white; and Neutrals are one of the easiest groups of colours, or non-colours to work with. They don't appear on the colour wheel and include Black, Grey, White and sometimes Brown and Beige. They all go together and can be layered and mixed and matched. No neutral colour will try to dominate over another.

2. Primary Color



3. Analogous Color in Red + Violet + Blue
These three colors together with black and white always appear in Marc by Marc collections, though the value, intensity and saturation are varied.


4. Split Complimentary Color in Red + Violet + Blue Yellow



5. Balance of Color

6. Harmony of Color --
Convenient for futher development in collections


7. Flicker -- Red and Blue





The red and blue combination often appears in Marc by Mar Jacobs collections.
Red and blue are colors that flicker when seen together. If both colours have the same value and saturation, they seem to flash when seen together. Flicker is an attention-getting color device that is often used in advertising, packaging, or signage, but it is very irritating and unsuitable in textile, fashion, or interior design unless a particularly irritating effect is desired.

8. Widely use of Accent Color


An accent color is a color used in quite small quantities to lift or to add punch to a colour scheme.
An accent colour should be in a complementary colour. It works best if it's a bright, vibrant colour. Marc by Marc Jacobs is a more commercial brand, and its customers might scare of strong color outfits, and accent colours are perfect for them -- simply add a splash of an accent colour on the zipper, trimmings or on the accessories.


We also discovered some interesting rules of using colors in Marc by Marc Jacobs:

1. A color scheme usually comes back and is reused in Marc by Marc Jacobs every four to five years. That is the spring 2007 color scheme is very similar to that of Spring 2002; and spring 2008 is similar to Spring 2003.

Spring 2007 Spring 2002


2. Each Season you with find a hint of what colors are coming next. There are about fifty to sixty outfits presented in each fashion show, and usually after thirty outfits, there is a significant change in hue, tone, saturation etc. of the outfits compare to the former thirty. Then, in the next season you might find the continuous usage of color scheme at the beginning of the fashion show.

Spring 2002 Fall 2006


So, we cannot find out what’s in Marc Jacobs’ mind, but we might predict the color scheme of the next Marc by Marc Jacobs’ collection, with some seemingly reliable evidence from the past seasons:

Step 1: Achromatic is a must.
Step 2: Red and blue too!
Step 3: Trace back the color scheme at four years ago( Remember the cycle of color scheme, huh? ).
Step 4: Check out the lower part of last season’s fashion show to seek implication of the coming collection’s color scheme.
Step 5: Organize the results from the above steps and fit into a color theory in design application, add a few accent colors as you like.

Eureka! Now, just wait and see if the steps really works.