Fashion's magician casts his spell over New York

A good Marc Jacobs show - and this season's was a firecracker - has the unfortunate side effect of making the rest of New York fashion week look utterly bloodless. Last night, after three days of designer musings on the theme of expensive looking shift dresses that show off your bony clavicles, Marc Jacobs had the audience on the edge of their seats. Literally so, in many cases, since his riposte to the critics who berated him for a recent show being two hours late was to send the models down the runway at 9.05pm, only five minutes after official show time.

Ugly Betty meets Little House on the Prairie would be the flip description of this collection. But there was much more to it than that: metallic stripe kente-style African fabrics and Northern Exposure red-and-white plaid; canape-sized hats and chunky espadrille boots; a strong, feminine silhouette that was part Yves Saint Laurent, part Eliza Doolittle.

Very early on in his career, Marc Jacobs designed his iconic grunge collection for Perry Ellis - and was immediately fired. That experience, and his subsequent comeback, has given him a fearlessness which, when he is on form, energises his catwalk in a way none of his American peers can rival. And - surprisingly rare, this, among top designers - he absolutely gets the modern world. While many of his rivals remain cooped in their ivory towers, still snooty about the new-fangled internet, Jacobs recently named a handbag, the BB, after one of his favourite fashion bloggers. ("This is the best thing that has ever happened to me", BryanBoy wrote on his blog.)

So it seems a fascinating case of life imitating art - or is it the other way around? - that in an era when celebrity and artifice have come to dominate popular culture, Jacobs has become in thrall to narcissism, in his work and his personal life.

His physical transformation has been almost chilling in its comprehensiveness. The overweight, spectacle-wearing geek who used to shuffle on to the catwalk in an old sweatshirt, shoulders hunched, hiding behind mousy lank hair, has been replaced lock, stock and barrel by a gym-honed, diamond-studded, caramel-tanned, orthodontically perfect hunk who poses in his underwear for magazines.

Last night's catwalk was laid out as a hall of mirrors: backstage after the show, he said these represented "the joy of vanity". Judging from the rapturous reception of this show, it looks like he might just be onto something there.

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