Très Français! Très chic! Très jolie! And a gutsy expression of positive thinking at the end of a watershed season during which the economy was almost everyone’s chief obsession.

 

Which, Marc Jacobs maintains, is not his concern. “I’m sure the economic advisers are not worrying about what colors to make sweaters,” he said the day before his Louis Vuitton show. (On that matter, he was decisive, wearing a deep purple pullover-and-kilt combo.) “Yes, there’s a crisis, but one can carry on and contribute to beauty and optimism and gorgeousness. I have a practical mind — cut the party and celebrities [a reference to his New York approach], but you can’t sacrifice the beauty of the clothes.”

 

Nor their frivolity. For fall, Jacobs celebrated the enduring French coquette — think Victoire de Castellane, although he mentioned Loulou de la Falaise and Ines de la Fressange, as well — by working the stereotypes of chichi seduction to girly perfection. To announce his Francophile leanings, Jacobs engaged the feisty brass band The Grooms to serenade his arriving guests with the boisterous “Gaîté Parisienne.” (Yes, that’s the can-can song; never mind the small irony that Americans know it well as “Da-da-da-da, ShopRite while the savings last!”)

 

And gaîté it was, from flirty laced, corseted, poufed, peplumed, paisleyed, pailletted, ruched, twisted and lacquered start to finish. You thought you’d seen every possible take on a suit? Not Jacobs’ suit-cum-lingerie charmer, a delightfully naughty peekaboo blush jacket with black piping and leg-of-mutton sleeves over a tight skirt smocked nine ways to Sunday and bunched prettily at the hem. To wit, everything came curvier, sassier, sexier, more decorated and pretend decadent than anything else out there. One dress, in midnight blue, had a sheer black lace bodice, capelet and overlay, side shirring, pink peplum and a bow on each hip. More discreet were whisper-thin sweaters with built-in, show-through bras — one in green over a frothy tiered skirt. Jacobs offered a new twinset, a printed bubble skirt over matching jeweled leggings. As for pants, they got dolled up with flamboyant, foot-deep ruffles at the hem. To go over all these provocative gems, Jacobs offered great coats, including a pair of traffic-stopping reds and a dream trench in glazed, paisley-printed velvet.

 

Accessories? There were bags within bags, some ruffled or with sequined monograms; shoes with fishnet overlays or heels pierced with pearl-tipped hat pins; boots laced with velvet ribbons and demonstrative jewelry that aped the kind children craft from paper. And on and on, in an endless celebration of joyful fashion of the Frenchiest sort.

 

Which, according to the designer, makes perfect sense for the moment. There could be a nuclear holocaust, Jacobs said, and “The French would hold on to fashion.”