>> Late Friday, Marc Jacobs announced that in addition to canceling his much-anticipated fashion show afterparty, he would also be cutting his show invite list by over half.  Instead of the usual 1,100 seated guests, there will be only 700; likewise, the usual 900 standing assignments are being cut down to 200 and will be largely reserved for employees, making the coveted Marc Jacobs invite more elusive than ever.

“This isn’t the time to spend the money to entertain the entire world,” Robert Duffy, Marc's right-hand man and president of Marc Jacobs International, explained of the downsizing. “Everybody thinks it costs the same money to entertain 500 people as opposed to 2,000.  It doesn’t. All those 2,000 people still need to be seated, they still need to check in, this one needs this, that one needs that, and you know what? It’s very costly.”

Marc is showing at his usual venue, the 69th Regimental Armory, Duffy continued, because “it’s a great place to show, and it was booked a year ago. I’m not going to pay a cancellation fee."

But the Marc-Jacobs-show-as-circus may be a thing of the past — for now, anyway. “It’s not going to be like it has been in the past, where Marc Jacobs Inc. entertains everybody for the evening,” according to Duffy. “I’m not saying it’s not going to go back to that, but right now, during this economic environment, it would seem ostentatious for us to continue doing the same thing. [The feeling is] just have the people that need to be there be there and look at the clothes.”

In short, expect a Marc show of a different kind: few celebrities — “there may be one or two"; a much simpler set — "this is not the time for extravaganzas" and no tagalongs — does that mean Bee Shaffer won't be coming with Anna Wintour? — "A lot of our editors would ask if their husbands could come, their kids. It was entertainment. We got a lot of requests: ‘Can I bring so-and-so?’ This time it’s no.”
*image: source