Marc Jacobs.

Byline: Mark Holgate

When Marc Jacobs showed his fall collection in New York last February, the haunting Disney-on-acid incidental music from Edward Scissorhands was the first inkling that we weren't in Kansas anymore. Gone was the sugar-coated, nostalgic sweetness that Jacobs has been known for the last few years. He was going for a mood that was more magical and wintry and melancholic. "I love the word melancholy," Jacobs says. "It's like when people say the weather is depressing. The rain, the cold, the bare branches. . . . I have no problem when it's like that."

It's interesting that Jacobs, of all people, should be the one who believes the sun has gone down on the retro-tinged prettiness of recent times-all those ruffles and flowers and sherbet-shaded silks-because he himself had been one of its most vociferous proponents. And so when he showed his radically new fall Marc Jacobs collection-with its voluminous coats with velvet Peter Pan collars, tweed skirts shrouded with tulle, and Empire-line cocoon dresses-the critics went into overdrive.

By the time Jacobs showed his Louis Vuitton line a month later, however, fashion eyes were already beginning to adjust to this brooding, romantic vision. There were the same gauzy veilings and Edwardian jet taffeta, but now morphed into thirties-like suits, nipped-waist jackets with lavish fur collars, and short dresses that looked like Wednesday Addams heading to a party.

It's long been said that great designers understand what women want to wear before they've even seen it. Great designers also intuit the next mood; they identify a culture's swirling undercurrents. Jacobs has always known where the wind is blowing next, be it luxe logos, a prim fifties prettiness, or this new somber, romantic glamour. With both his own signature ...