Marc Jacobs' dreadlock show — 'funny how you don't criticize women of color'

On September 15, 2016, the final day of New York Fashion Week, Marc Jacobs showed his spring-summer 2017 collection — a cast that included Kendall Jenner, Gigi and Bella Hadid, Karlie Kloss and Irina Shayk, mostly white models wearing rainbow-coloured faux dreadlocks. Critics asked immediately why the hairstyle, rooted in Black culture, had not come with Black models to wear it. The complaint was the same one fashion had been absorbing for years; Jacobs's answer to it was not.

Around September 17 he defended the styling on Instagram and went after the critics: 'funny how you don't criticize women of color for straightening their hair.' 'I respect and am inspired by people and how they look. I don't see color or race — I see people,' he wrote. 'I'm sorry to read that so many people are so narrow minded… Love is the answer.' He also posted screenshots of articles calling the uproar 'ridiculous.' The dismissal turned a styling complaint into a contempt one, and the backlash grew.

The next day, Sunday September 18, Jacobs posted again with a different register: he apologised for 'the lack of sensitivity unintentionally expressed by my brevity,' affirmed he 'wholeheartedly' believed in freedom of expression through art and clothes, and added: 'Of course I do "see" color but I DO NOT discriminate. THAT IS A FACT!' The collection was never the story again. The show joined fashion's running ledger of runway styling decisions delivered without the cultural context to carry them — and responses that made the ledger longer.