The Marc Jacobs show seemed simple enough: The Armory was done up as an all-white box with white benches and no bleachers or runway. The event started promptly and without any long lines at the door; security guards deposited Madonna onto a seat, no fuss, no paparazzi, and Lady Gaga slipped in a little late, but unobtrusively. “We’re leaving with a big smile. It’s very good,” Carine Roitfeld told us. “It was just like we like, no?” But her companion, Purple magazine’s Olivier Zahm, had a decidedly more complicated take. He called the mood “schizophrenic,” seeing in it a woman who is driven by the moon. “The moon is the first symbol of schizophrenia, so this is why I connect schizophrenia with it,” he told us. “Because the moon has two sides, one clear side and one dark side.” This collection, he felt, represents the lighter side “that hides a really dark side.” Roitfeld looked as confused as we did. “My God,” she replied, “you need a shrink to understand what he said. Ooh la la — for me it’s too much.” “It’s a big fashion circus,” Zahm concluded, with a shrug. “And we are part of it, I’m afraid.”

View the entire Marc Jacobs collection.