Unless you are very, very lucky, we bet you never found these treasures in Grandma’s attic. The inspiration for the French house’s pre-fall 2010 collection was based on this simple premise: Throw open a few cobweb-covered cases hidden away for years, and then put on whatever you find. “It’s about dressing up,” says Julie de Libran, Marc Jacobs’s deputy who is responsible for designing this and the resort collections. “Mixing up past and present to have fun, be comfortable.” That could mean the classic LV cashmere throw, woven in Scotland, and whipped up into a capelike mini coat, complete with blanket-stitch edging, worn with cashmere lace socks—lucky the moths didn’t get to them in that suitcase—and fur-and-bead-embellished thirties sandals. Or fox-fur vests—Granny was obviously loaded— to wear with short sweater dresses, or jacquard crop pants, again with those 1930s dancing shoes. The fur also flew onto the shoulders of this very Jenny Cavilleri short tweed cover-up, worn with an angora grunge hat. Clearly, one of those trunks was hauled all the way from Radcliffe College, back in the day.
—Mark Holgate