Marc Jacobs on fashion's new body image

The idea that the new decade could see a return to womanly shapes in fashion is gaining momentum, and designer Marc Jacobs addressed the issue as part of the Alliance Française talk series in Paris this week.

Interviewed by the Museum at FIT's deputy director, Patricia Mears, he told the audience what prompted him to cast more voluptuous women such as Elle Macpherson and Laetitia Casta for his most recent Louis Vuitton show: "I believe that these iconic, larger-than-life women are very Vuitton-like...This season we talked about it and we decided the criteria was, they have to be available on the day of the show and they have to be gorgeous.

"Even if you had no idea about fashion and had never looked at fashion, you would say, ‘Wow, look how beautiful those women look.'"

He added that heterosexual men - whose preferences for female body types couldn't have been more distant from those promoted in fashion over the past decade - approached him after the show, congratulating him on the New Look: "I did receive e-mails from people's brothers who were like: ‘I don't know anything about fashion, but that was a gorgeous show.' Which was really what we wanted to do."

Respected fashion blog, The Imagist, also added to the debate, writing on March 22: "There's an unwritten memo now circulating [...] amongst a tight circle of model-makers and the message is this...the directive of the 00's to have armies of blank, disposable, lookalike girls marching at the service of the campaigns, magazines and the runways is over.

"New decade, new ideal and that agenda was pursued with distinction at the Marc Jacobs, Prada, Giles Deacon's and Louis Vuitton's Fall shows. Turning to the pages, what the early booking reports on the FW 10 campaigns and editorials is registering is a taste for the ultra-individual girl."

The author hinted at upcoming Givenchy ads and Italian Vogue fashion spreads that would soon depict this new beauty ideal.