Courtney Howard // Film Critic
Rated PG-13, 1 hour and 27 minutes
Directed by: Sofia Coppola
Starring: Marc Jacobs, Sofia Coppola
There’s nobody better than filmmaker Sofia Coppola to capture world-famous, quintessentially New York fashion designer Marc Jacobs hard at work. Their fertile friendship began in the 90s and, in the years following, blossomed into a mutually beneficial collaborative relationship. She was one of his muses, gracing the cover of his Assouline coffee table book in Juergen Teller’s photo (initially used for Jacobs’ Fall 2000 ad campaign) as a sleepy party girl, wearing a frilly red cocktail dress and snuggling the designer’s iconic push-lock purse (an “it bag” that ruled the scene in the early aughts). She also had a shoulder bag in his high end collection named after her and a watercolor portrait of her by artist Elizabeth Peyton featured in ads for his Essence fragrance line. She even donned a Marc Jacobs gown when she won her Oscar for LOST IN TRANSLATION.
Coppola’s first documentary, MARC BY SOFIA, is a fashion lover’s dream. Its unconventional, elegant, punk-rock whimsy is symbolic of the subject himself, whose designs break the mold, dazzle the eye and viscerally connect to the heart. It serves as both a portrait of a brilliant, visionary artist doing what he loves and, perhaps subconsciously, a daughter’s loving tribute to her recently deceased mother/ documentarian Eleanor Coppola. While it rejects a by-the-numbers approach in its assembly, audiences get a clear-eyed view of Jacobs’ incredible talent and out-of-the-box ideas that have steadied his career through tumultuous times. He courts the drama – and knows exactly how to tailor it to his advantage.
The doc’s brisk 90 minute runtime speeds up the timeline on Jacobs’ FW 2024 collection filled with inspired 60s pop culture pulls, oversized, teased hairdos and exaggerated clothing designs that recall Park Avenue Princesses from a bygone era. Coppola, completely fascinated by Jacobs’ hyper-focused detailing on the models’ stocking color, begins our journey with the once wunderkind a mere 12 weeks before his show. And it takes a village to bring his conceptualized vision to fruition, from his heads of design right down the line to those who select and stitch together the various fabric textiles. To see how it all comes together in flickering backroom glimpsed blips feels like a treat. At one point, as they wait with a zen-like patience for their leather accessories to be delivered, they use cardboard cut-outs as comical stand-ins that could easily ascend to starring roles if need be.
Coppola’s intimate familiarity with Jacobs acts as both a blessing and curse. For those in the audience, coming in fresh, not exactly knowing who this designer is and what’s kept him afloat all these years later since his humble beginnings designing sweaters, they might be more than a little lost by Coppola’s rejection of genre-standard outlines. But for those of us fashionistas (who’ve either purchased his designer goods, or those who’ve been on the sidelines) who’ve witnessed his brand’s multitude of rises and falls over the decades, she offers us a slightly deeper glimpse at his inner-workings. In their confessional-style interviews held at his headquarters and his home (in his silk PJs), she asks him interesting ice-breaker questions ruminating on his own favorite back-to-school outfit, the first outfit he ever made, his grandmother’s indelible influence on his career, and his ability to be friends with his intimidating idols. In a smart move, she also farms out some of the burning questions to inquisitive young fashion students attending a meet-and-greet at his BookMarc store.
The dynamic duo, who are aided behind the camera by DP Roman Coppola, get into the craftsmanship and care he’s taken to maintain two separate brand identities, designing under his own namesake label (but with no mentions of Marc by Marc Jacobs line) and creatively shepherding the Louis Vuitton label. His collaborations with Murakami and Stephen Sprouse are legendary in the industry and seeing them blown up as images on-screen feels like a nostalgic visit with old friends.The pair share a knowing chuckle about how he dressed the likes of troubled women on trial with his wares cloaking the likes of Winona Ryder, who was accused of shoplifting his clothes from the now defunct department store, Barney’s New York.
While I wanted to see Coppola draw a more psychological profile of her queer subject’s continually changing personal aesthetics (his transformation from adorable geek to buff hunk had tongues wagging in the past) and, from a business perspective, how he’s sustained his legendary brand through ups and downs (his once flourishing collection boutiques and Marc by Marc stores have gone through major overhauls), her positive piece stays tuned into the here and now, depicting a trendsetter with chrome silver nails and a relaxed attitude.
It’s left for us to wonder how he might feel having his name personally interwoven with his brand successes and failures, which the documentary mostly glosses over. This is a man who’d rather print the legend (like when it comes to the misnomer he was given a pink slip after his infamous grunge runway show flopped at Perry Ellis) than confront stark truths. I can’t think of a better accessory in fashion that caters to the wealthy and WASP-y than a denial, or, at the very least, a conscious uncoupling from negativity.
Grade: 4 out of 5
MARC BY SOFIA opens in New York and LA on March 20. It opens wide on March 27.