The Marc Jacobs Spring 2027 Show Celebrated Heavy Black Eyeliner and My Emo Girl Heart Is Happy

Marc Jacobs presented his Spring/Summer 2027 show at the New York Public Library on Monday June 29th, returning to the space for the first time in two years. Fans of the designer will rejoice in the colorful display of artful layering and scintillating textures (who knew peach PVC would become a must-have closet staple for the new year?). For the beauty fans in the crowd, the parade of icy blue, sunshine yellow, and luxe lavender pieces felt like an apt reminder that Jacobs recently relaunched his eponymous beauty line, Marc Jacobs Beauty, with a newly youthful, Euphoria-esque aesthetic while maintaining his signature fearless approach to color.

Models sported a rainbow of lipstick shades on the runway, from glossy raspberry to warm crimson, with plenty of flawless nude tones thrown in for good measure. But having grown up in the '90s and early '00s, my eyes went straight to the ring of black eyeliner circling each model's upper and lower lids, with a barely-there wing to elongate the eye shape. Dark, imperfect, and thoroughly unapologetic, the season of the grunge girl is still here it seems, and with Jacobs' pedigree as the king of grunge (recall the infamous 1993 Perry Ellis collection that quite literally got him fired from the brand, while sparking the quintessential early '90s aesthetic) the return to his beauty roots feels like a fitting throwback.

In his show notes, Jacobs wrote, "Creating, as an act of gratitude, is my truest form of self-expression,” and indeed, the deeply personal show felt like a stylish reflection of the designer's singular point of view. It makes sense, then, that his glam choices would be similarly confident and artful. The bare "clean girl" aesthetic, while still buzzy in certain corners of the beauty internet, gives way to something more brazen in the world of Marc Jacobs. All it took was a few models sauntering down the runway in glossy lips and tightlined eyes to inspire me to reach once again for my bag of eyeliners and mascaras, which in the summer are normally relegated to the furthest reaches of my beauty vanity. Why not risk the seasonal heat and subsequent under-eye smear for the sake of a high-fashion eye look? It makes my forever emo girl heart happy to think of makeup, like the clothing in Jacobs' show, as a true statement moment, rather than something barely-there and subtle.

"I chatted with Marc about giving the makeup this feeling that it was a bit done but undone," Thomas de Kluyver, lead makeup artist for Marc Jacobs Beauty, explained via a press release to media. "All the fabrics in the collection are super shiny and sheer, so we wanted to continue those textures through the makeup. The skin is dewy and glossy with either a black or colored lined eye. Some models' looks are finished with a neon lip—others just a clear shine. In a way it's very New York, the girl that works uptown during the day then goes downtown at night."

With the energy in New York at an all-time high (thank you, Mayor Mamdani and the New York Knicks) I can think of no better time to embrace Jacobs' call to self-expression with a little—or a lot—of eyeliner. Spark joy! Be bold! Don't worry that your mascara is transferring to your lower lid by noon! Is this a sign that makeup can be fun again, rather than merely a did she or didn't she application to help you look effortlessly flawless? Well, if you catch me on the 2 train to work in the morning with a whole heap of black pigment in my water line, you'll have your answer.

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