DALLAS, Apr 6, 2005/ FW/ --- In 1992, Marc Jacobs won the CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year. Since then, he has been a perennial candidate for the award, showing that season after season, his work always goes up a notch higher than before.

Last January, in a survey conducted by Harris Interactive, younger American women voted Marc Jacobs as one of the most elegant designers, another proof that he has understood the zeitgeist of the populace.

He had taken us to grunge, then to the thrift shop stores, taught us the school of rock & roll while playing hip-hop at the same time. Then he decided to make us sophisticates to bring us to a new age of elegance in American fashion.

So, it is not a surprise that we usually see Marc Jacob’s name among the nominees for the Womenswear Designer of the Year.

As the CFDA announcement said, the award is given to “an American designer who has made the most outstanding contribution to and has influenced the direction of women's ready-to-wear fashion with his or her Spring and Fall 2005 collections.”

Taking a look at his Fall 2005 collection that was shown last February in New York, it’s ‘Alice in Wonderland Reaches Venice’ when she fell in the rabbit hole.

A very eclectic collection that has something for the girly girl and the tomboy next door, the debutante in millionaire’s row and the well-traveled lady who always goes to Europe, Marc Jacobs nonchalantly mixed and matched influences to come up with a collection that works.

Because who can put a floor length balloon skirt reminiscent of a Venetian lady during the Renaissance with a mini tiered cocktail dress and baby doll woolen coat on the runway and still come up with a coherent fashion statement?

Like a great storyteller, Marc Jacobs can take you to a labyrinth of subplots, then show you in the end that everything is part of one big plot, a fashion tale that has a beginning, climax and denouement when the designer takes his bow.

Marc Jacob’s Fall 2005 collection played with volume and draping in every aspect, as part of fluid lines in his flounce skirts to the architecturally constructed balloons on dresses and gowns.

It was an artistic statement that is commercially viable from the clothes to the bags and shoes, proposing ease of dressing this coming fall.

Marc Jacobs

Marc Jacobs

Marc Jacobs

Marc Jacobs