Marc Jacobs Spring 1998 Ready-to-Wear

Editor’s Note: Marc Jacobs is American Vogue’s first guest editor. To mark the occasion, this early collection has been digitized as part of Vogue Runway’s ongoing efforts to document historical fashion shows.

A look at Marc Jacobs’s spring 1998 show offers a master class in quiet luxury more than 25 years before it became a trend, and an AP-level lesson in American style. The collection skews young. White shirts and pleated skirts call to mind the clean orderliness of school uniforms, while the sleeveless sheaths capture the propriety of the ladylike, or debutante, aesthetic. Though it’s more difficult to put one’s finger on the element of cool, it’s definitely there, and is related both to ease and touch.

“At show after show last week… outrageously luxe basics [took] to the catwalk,” wrote London’s Evening Standard at the time. “The apotheosis of this low maintenance, high luxe mood were Marc Jacobs’s ‘cashmere tulle’ T-shirts, as expensive as a round-the-world plane ticket, as simple as American pie. And impossible to copy.” The richness of the piece is difficult to discern with the eyes, but easily felt when the fabric is next to the skin. This feels in line with America’s Puritan legacy—with taste filling in for faith.

Demonstrating his own belief in Jacobs’s talent, earlier in the year LVMH’s Bernard Arnault had tapped the New Yorker to develop a ready-to-wear line for Louis Vuitton. (See Jacobs’s Paris debut here.)