Fashion & Beauty

QUESTION MARC

MARC Jacobs bared his tongue in Paris on Sunday night. While taking his bow on the catwalk following the Louis Vuitton show, he publicly – in front of an audience that included his boss, LVMH head Bernard Arnault, the world’s top fashion editors, and celebs like Courtney Love, Kanye West and Victoria Beckham – stuck it out at International Herald Tribune fashion critic Suzy Menkes.

The designer’s defiant, if childish, gesture was a response to Menkes’ scathing review of Jacobs’ namesake Marc Jacobs spring 2008 collection: “A bad, sad show,” she called it, that “symbolized everything that is wrong with current fashion.” And the tongue is just the latest in a string of bizarre, bratty antics that have industry insiders whispering about the state of Jacobs’ mental affairs.

While he is arguably the most influential working American fashion designer today, this past year has seen Jacobs, 44, in and out of rehab and plagued with rumors about plastic surgery and drug-induced weight loss (he insists he dropped the pounds by working out and going organic).

Embroiled in a steamy, on-again off-again relationship with Jason Preston – the ex-male prostitute and former porn-star who had Jacobs’ name tattooed on his fore-get-your-mind-out-of-the-gutter-arm – Jacobs has also posed naked for a WWD cover, Out magazine, and the latest self-edited issue of Visionaire.

His previously critic-proof professional success is also suffering rumblings of imminent backlash. Not only is he earning a (deserved) reputation for being unable to start a show anywhere near on time – the Vuitton show in Paris started an hour and a half late and the Marc Jacobs show here started more than two hours past schedule – recent reviews have been far less than stellar.

“A remarkable display of self-destruction,” The Post called it.

In the days that followed, Jacobs gave a ranting interview to WWD, blaming the Council of Fashion Designers of America for his tardiness, whining about feeling like an outsider and threatening to move all his shows to Europe.

To be honest, we expected a lot more from the man who was credited with bringing creative credibility back to the American fashion industry beginning with grunge in the early ’90s. Instead, he’s turned into a whiny, bratty, self-obsessed cheeseball. Whether his new image and obnoxious professional demeanor will impact his bottom line remains to be seen. And we’re not talking about his ass – though we’re sure it’s in great shape, and no we don’t want to see it (anymore).