ON THE MARC

For Harpers Bazaar, iconic American designer Calvin Kleins interviews iconic American designer Marc Jacobs.

The varied topics ranged from:

The Menswear line:

CK: With your menswear collection, do you look at the clothes and say, Would I wear this?

MJ: In terms of having a business, I wanted to let it go beyond what my personal taste is. Basically, I’m in a kilt and a white shirt every day. So, you know, I don’t have a lot of scope, and I’m really picky about what I wear. Even if it’s weird, it’s very particular to me. And you can’t make a business out of what I would wear. We’d be out of business.

His fragrance, Bang:

CALVIN KLEIN: I’d like to talk about the fragrance. How would you describe it?

MARC JACOBS: I like it! But no, it’s important to say that because I thought this had to be something I would wear and use and want. So it was in the gym that I came up with the name Bang, like bang! That’s it. Then I thought about what I loved and about spices in particular. So I talked to the people at Coty and I said, “I really like pepper — black, white, yellow, pink peppercorns, pepper fragrance — and I want to wear it.” And then we talked about the bottle and the packaging and the image.

Robert [Duffy], my business partner, said, “I think you’re in really good shape, and you should do the ads.” I had to come up with references where I felt that that was a good idea. I had to find, for me, someone who had done it that made it okay for me to be in it. So, of course, I came up with the famous Yves Saint Laurent image by Jeanloup Sieff, and I thought, Well, there's someone I respect and admire, and if he can take off his clothes — and it also made a lot of sense because, fashionwise, I'm not a guy who's sartorial. I'm not Tom Ford in terms of the grooming and the knowledge of clothes and the precision and perfection of getting dressed. There's nothing I can wear in this ad that isn't going to look ridiculous. At one point, I tried jeans and a shirt, and it didn't work. So then Juergen said, "Take off the clothes." So I did, and that became the ad.

What it FINALLY took to get Jacob's ass to the gym:

CK: Your health and the way you feel and the way your body feels are the result of diet and exercise. That’s a very big deal. It’s very easy to let yourself go when you’re busy and justify it or find the excuse, like, I can’t be bothered.

MJ: I told the nutritionist, “I don’t have time for all this stuff,” and he said, “Well, you’re not going to have much time left. You’re burning the candle at both ends. You’re working in two different countries. You’re jet-lagged all the time. You’re sick all the time. How much time do you really think you have left if you don’t do something?”

Fabulous, darling