Artist’s set steals the show at NY Fashion Week

Sculptor Rachel Feinstein constructed an elaborate paper scenery backdrop for the Marc Jacobs show at the recently wrapped New York Fashion Week and has stolen the show as a result.

While fashion catwalks are usually stark, white affairs, used only as a platform for slender models to showcase fashion to buyers, this time Marc Jacobs asked Feinstein to get creative for his fall/winter 2012 show.

What resulted was a version of “a broken castle. Marie Antoinette’s version of ruins”, Feinstein told Style.com.

The paper construction came completely with a fountain in the middle and was lit up by electric blue lighting, which highlighted the depth and texture of the set.

Marc Jacobs is a showman whose name alone has the power to shape the fashion paradigm. This set is testament to his desire to stand apart from the rest.

The Guardian called his show, “striking, awkward and fantastical, his catwalk message veered somewhere between a dazzling version of the musical Oliver! and Dr Seuss' Cat in the Hat.”

The show was a mixture of pop culture and historical references that saw oversized fur hats – think JK from Jamiroquai – positioned against unusual hemlines.

According to the Guardian Jacobs said backstage that “everyone should wear their fur coat on their head this season.”

The lyrics of “Who Will Buy This Wonderful Morning?” by Lionel Bart, from the 1963 musical of the Charles Dickens story “Oliver Twist,” was juxtaposed against the crystal buckles on high-tongued Pilgrim shoes.