There’s a scene in the new documentary “I Am: Celine Dion” where Ms. Dion describes her devotion to designer heels.
“When a girl loves her shoes, she always makes them fit,” the singer said, spreading her fingers to show how she’s squished her toes to fit shoes from size 6 to 10. Asked about her size while shopping, she said: she would reply to sales associates, “What size are you? I will make them work. I’ll make them match.”
It’s a feeling familiar to women who like to play dress-up: the determination is so great that it pushes against delusion.
That was certainly the feeling at Marc Jacobs’ runway show on Monday night, held at the New York Public Library. Fashion is determined to be a happy medium, even especially when the world seems joyless. And Mr. Jacobs was determined to dress his models as surreal dolls of 20th-century American iconography.
A heavy white Marilyn Monroe dress opened the show. His bodice was oversized, with pointy bras and a skirt sculpted to a permanent half-flow. Marilyn walked in white sandals made to look about an inch too big in each direction, like a girl who insisted on wearing heels from her mother’s closet. (“I walk the shoe, the shoe does not walk me,” as Ms. Dion said I would say.)
The proportions were a continuation of Mr. Jacobs’ runway show in February: large and cartoonish, like a joke we’re all supposed to be in on. The models appeared to be stretching to keep their bulky clothes in place, though of course they fit exactly as Mr. Jacobs wanted. Necklines were lifted by invisible fingers from the shoulders of Peter Pan collar jackets, preppy V-neck sweaters, voluminous floral cocktail dresses. Saccharine bikinis — one in white pointe, pinned with a photo-realistic daisy pin, the other with yellow polka dots — floated and protruded from the body.
Occasionally these proportions seemed diabolical. Some shoes had horned toes. The models could not fully open their eyes, which were covered with thick eyelashes painted in pastel patches, a commentary on women blinded to the world by their obsession with beauty. (Or maybe, as stylist Gabriella Karefa-Johnson suggested on Instagram, it was just a tribute to Miss Piggy.)
Although subversive at times—Mr. Jacobs can make a beautiful dress with holes look disorganized—the collection was fundamentally optimistic. The designer opened his show notes with a single sentence: “Joy, period.” She wrote that she sees fashion as a path to a “deeper search for joy, beauty, and personal transformation.” She covered Cardi B, a guest, in a cloud of purple and yellow flowers.
Mr. Jacobs’ personal transformation of late includes wearing long fingernails that can be seen and heard (the rhythmic clack!) from meters away. On Monday his nails it was a french manicuretheir edges are encrusted with gems that look like some embellished pieces in the collection, including a mini skirt suit.
On miniskirt suits: The most talked about topic in fashion continues to be who will take over Chanel after creative director Virginie Viard leaves. Mr. Jacobs, who incorporated quilted bags into Monday night’s show, is one of several names in the conversation — perhaps not among the top three suspects, but somewhere in the top 10.
While neither candidate has publicly commented on the speculation, some eyebrows were raised by those words in Mr. Jacobs’ show notes: “The future remains unwritten.”
