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LONDON, United Kingdom — "I believe we'll dance again and I believe we'll be creative again but how that looks and how that feels... I don't know," Marc Jacobs told BoF Editor-at-Large Tim Blanks in the latest special edition of the BoF Podcast. The designer is currently staying at a hotel in New York, watching as more labels and retailers buckle under store closures and debt.
As American fashion changes rapidly in real-time, Jacobs shared his thoughts on the state of an industry in flux.
- Jacobs revisited his last fashion show at the Park Avenue Armory. "I would be very happy if that were my last show," he said. New York's role in global fashion is waning, and the future of live fashion shows in the coming months and years remains uncertain. "We don't know if there will be much of a fashion industry in New York," said Jacobs. "Will the people that have the skill still be around?"
- Furthermore, the waste within the industry, and the flawed system of scheduling and orders has put more of an impetus on designers to slow down. "The idea of being forced to create something and tell a story constantly when it has no soul feels so vacant," said Jacobs, pointing also to the wasted fabrics and unused products that end up in landfills. "The urge to make things and create things hasn't gone away… I still have stories to tell," he added. Maybe how that happens will change.
- Digital collections and online shopping aren't adequate substitutes. "Ordering online in a pair of grubby sweats is not my idea of living life," said Jacobs, comparing the experience to looking at art online. "I don't look at a Rothko online and cry."
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