Editor’s Note: For many people in fashion, their 9/11 memories are inextricably linked with Marc Jacobs’s spring 2002 show and after-party, which took place the evening of Monday, September 10, on Pier 54. The clear plastic tent built for the event offered clear views of the Twin Towers.
On September 10, 2001, we showed the Marc Stadium Jacobs spring 2002 collection on a West Side pier. I remember there had been really bad rain, or we’d received some word that we might have to cancel the show because it was too windy and too rainy by the pier. They were afraid we wouldn’t be able to do the show.
But we did. It was a very special show. We had the flowers, and then the flowers parted, and there was the after-party on the pier for the fragrance launch.
For a lot of people, that show comes up over the years around this time. They will say, “Oh my God, I remember your show, and I remember what I was doing because of 9/11.” So people do offer me their anecdotes and their memories of that night.
For me, it really starts with the after-party. Two very dear friends of mine were at the show, Ricky Vider Rivers and her husband, David Rivers. At some point late into the night, or late into the party, Ricky said something like, “Where’s David? Have you seen David?” At least that’s how I remember it. Everybody had a lot to drink and was very gregarious, so I said no, I hadn’t seen him.
I look back on that now and it has a lot of meaning because David was a writer for the Financial Times, and on one of the very rare occasions that he was on time for a meeting, that meeting took place in the World Trade Center.
The next morning I woke up at the Mercer Hotel. We were supposed to have the Marc by Marc Jacobs show that day. I remember waking up thinking, Oh, we’ve got the show. Then I called down to the desk, and they told me what had happened, that there were these planes crashing into the World Trade Center. I looked out the window and there was just smoke and blackness.
I didn’t really believe it. Or maybe I just didn’t know. I didn’t understand the size of it, the bigness of it, the horror of it.
I remember wondering to myself, I wonder if the show is going to be canceled. Of course, looking back on it, of course it was going to be canceled. I don’t mean that in a fiddling-while-Rome-burned kind of way. I was in shock. I didn’t understand the magnitude of what was going on.
Shortly after that, I think it was Richard Buckley, Tom Ford’s husband, who told me David was missing. My memory isn’t so great these days, but I’m pretty sure it was Richard who told me what had happened and that Ricky was in a state. He asked me, “Can you go over to Ricky’s and sit with her? Be with her? She’s freaking out.”
So I did.
Later that morning we knew David was nowhere to be found. Of course, we later found out that he had died. That is my September 11 experience.
I don’t think we were at the office that week. I remember a little bit of the chaos at the Mercer because there were all these fashion editors there. This is hard to say without sarcasm or cynicism, and I include myself in this group, but there were a lot of very important editors trying to get home to Paris or Italy or wherever.
All the flights were canceled, but there was this kind of entitlement and absurdity going on. The Mercer was super trendy, so you had all these fashion people saying things like, “Well, I mean, I know that all the flights are canceled, but I’ll be able to get back.” In light of what had happened, it was absurd.
Walking around the city was just so horrifying and sad. All those pictures and posters started appearing everywhere for people who didn’t return home.
I remember seeing Ricky. I remember walking around the city and seeing those photographs. And I remember a lot of conversations about what had happened. I feel like there was a period when nobody did anything. Everybody was just paralyzed by the fear and by this horrible, horrible thing.
I don’t know if “a while” was five days or three days. But it was a few days before anybody started getting back to work. I think the first thing I had to do professionally was have my picture taken by Irving Penn for Vogue. I remember thinking, Certainly this photo shoot is going to be canceled. And I was told, “No, no. Mr. Penn works every day.”
So I went. I put on an old vintage raincoat and had my picture taken.
Eventually, clearly, I went back to work in Paris and we put on the Louis Vuitton show. I couldn’t have told you which collection it was without looking it up. There have been so many collections. Julie Verhoeven did those little animal-creature bags, I think, and we did those patchworks, those little patchwork fairy tales. There was all that deep-colored denim.
But when I think about September 11, I don’t really remember getting back to work. I remember Ricky. I remember walking around the city. I remember all those pictures of people who didn’t come home. And I remember listening to people talk about what had happened.
Jacobs takes a bow after his spring 2002 show
Photo: Victor Virgile / Gamma-Rapho / Getty Images
