Ensemble
This broad-shouldered, androgynous silhouette by American designer Marc Jacobs was inspired by 1980s fashion designers such as Claude Montana, Emanuel Ungaro and Thierry Mugler. Jacobs started his own brand in the late 1980s, at the pinnacle of 'power dressing,' when double-breasted, broad-shouldered suits conveyed the wearer’s socio-economic status and corporate power, regardless of gender. The woolen men's suit, worn by a woman, reflects the zeitgeist of both the 1980s and the late 2010s, in which issues like equality of men and women in the workplace and the concept of the glass ceiling often occur in public discourse.
Artwork Details
- Title: Ensemble
- Design House: Marc Jacobs (American, founded 1984)
- Designer: Marc Jacobs (American, born 1963)
- Designer: Hat designed by Stephen Jones (British, born 1957)
- Date: fall/winter 2018–19
- Culture: American
- Medium: (a) wool, silk; (b) silk; (c) silk, metal; (d) wool, silk; (e) silk; (f) wool, silk; (g, h) silk, leather, metal; (i, j) silk, metal
- Credit Line: Gift of Marc Jacobs, 2018
- Object Number: 2018.610a–j
- Curatorial Department: The Costume Institute
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