Photo of MJ tee from what's he wearing Matches Fashion
Marc Jacobs is closing his Mount Street, London store after having been there since 2007. A so-called pioneer of the many global brands that have since newly arrived to the street. The designer's brand was still riding high on the popularity of the 'it' bag styles of '00s, his Blakes and Venetias selling out in most department stores worldwide within weeks. MJ (along with Chloe's Paddington) brought the status bag to a whole new crowd, forgoing their mothers' more matronly Birkins, Speedys and Chanel Classic Flaps that had been so popular in the late-1980s and would return with a vengeance. These softer bags with MAJOR hardware referenced growing up in the 1970s, and a whole generation of young women who'd ever seen the like bought every colour and variation of these beautifully made but heavy bags. Somewhere along the timeline, Marc Jacobs and his diffusion line Marc for Marc Jacobs aimed at a even younger crown began to merge in people's heads to a vanishing point.
Mount street, although promoted to the hilt in every commercial and residential estate agent's portfolio is still off the tourist beaten track and the boutiques can often be deathly quiet. Weekday visits can see sales teams staring out at the street in hopeful anticipation of more than footfall or chat among themselves. In the last five years growth of online sales have more than doubled in terms of proportion of the market* and even five-figure sums are regularly spent on the new season fashion's trophy pieces before they sell out in a digital flash.
But this is much more than the ol' bricks and mortar store against digital mail order as global brands are queueing to get a foothold in prime locations in London as well as other capital cities, whatever the cost. These shops represent the pinnacle of a creative vision, a branding opportunity, a showroom dedicated to the senses of seeing and feeling (not to mention smelling whilst greeted by a whiff in the air of designer's scent). Where loyal and hoped-to-be-soon customers are treated to special, by invite only events and previews, the whole pleasurable, theatrical experience of shopping is at it's height in-store. That's all true and as maybe but many of these flagship stores are also loss leaders. In many ways it's the same as having a posh address to live in no matter how 'bijou', location, location, location. Nobody need ever really visit, it's about keeping up appearances on headed notepaper. Even if provincial fans of MJ's Daisy scent can't ever visit these stores in far flung cities at all, they can sniff their inside arm and be taken there.
Fashion Houses are now like football teams, there are still die-hard loyalists to each designer's aesthetic but most fans just float around from one brand to another to another, wanting to wear uniforms of this season's winning team and proudly announcing the(ir) score writ large on their bag, shoes ad belt buckle, perhaps it was ever thus. Maybe the financial papers have Marc Jacobs slipping down to the relegation zone, but with his RTW collections as strong as ever in recent seasons the creative juices are obviously still flowing ad with no Louis Vuitton to distract him perhaps get back to the wearable, quirky, quality items of MJ glory days. Even as part of the LVMH, Jacobs is one of the few global names that heads his own fashion brand and continues to have a strongly recognisable style.
Fashion has always been created with smoke and mirrors, but when one's tied to businesses as big as LVMH the ink on the bottom of the page is indelible and clear. Since eleven years ago the World is quite a different place and many businesses are having to cut their coat according to their cloth. Fashion would do better to invest in cloth than appearances for appearance sake, at least they stand more chance of retaining the loyal followers they have already and stop all chasing the same markets which don't know what they want so long as it's wanted by millions of others.
*Figures https://www.ft.com/content/a8f5c780-f46d-11e7-a4c9-bbdefa4f210b
Photo credit http://www.whats-he-wearing.com/2009/05/april-recap.html
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