There’s nothing an intellectual magazine writer loves more than a Bret Easton Ellis-ian fashion designer. The demigods of Paris make for some of the most over-the-top contemporary profile pieces. But in last week’s New Yorker, a much-e-mailed article about Marc Jacobs’ MySpace-couture lifestyle added little to an already-established paradigm of presenting the larger-than-life persona of fashion designers. Instead, it continued to inflate the ego of one of fashion’s most vulgar personalities.

It’s not Jacobs’ fault. He is merely a designer who stumbled into genius with his Warhol-like “playhouse” concept. But this is a man who stops smoking only for his daily gym routine and proudly admits to spending “hours” in front of the mirror. He is an attention-loving, two-time rehab resident who, in a certain light, seems more sad than glam. It’s the fault of media that inflates the seemingly shiny world of fashion to even more epic proportions, rather than poke very simple, searing holes in its fabric-thin façade.

The New Yorker piece begins with a pitch-perfect lede: Carrie Bradshaw, of course, is make-believe… whereas Marc Jacobs is a real person. Or he was once. This is the only time the piece inches towards ceding that something has been lost in Jacobs’ transformation from diligent artist and indie boy to superhero-strong, American Apparel-underwear-bearing businessman. It then becomes a podium for Jacobs to reaffirm that he is the (real-life) Victor Ward of the fashion world: Designer. Personality. It Boy.

“I wasn’t even in New York that Saturday,” Jacobs whines in an attempt to refute Page Six accusations of his brunching at Pastis one morning with his ex. “But baby!” he probably pleaded, stomping his feet a little bit. He may as well follow this up with: London? Paris? Munich? Everybody talk about… pop muzik!

Nowhere in the article does the reporter bother to delve into why Jacobs loves this attention, how success has affected him, and if, somewhere in his family-less, bed-hopping lifestyle, he ever feels lonely or anxious or bored. His vulnerable moments—like his business partner calling him “insecure,” his winding diatribe about the importance of physical fitness, his confessions of former addiction, his brief mentions of his ex-boyfriend (and possible true love)–are brushed over. They are about-faced like a model on a catwalk, replaced with a prettier, more stylized vision.

The two most consistent analogies in the piece are made between Jacobs and the fictional, fabulous Carrie Bradshaw and Jacobs and the imaginary, cartoon Superman. But Jacobs is a human being, which would ultimately make for a more compelling and original story. I think.

He is flawed (he points out the imperfections in his design methods), irritating (he shows up hours late for his own shows), and a bit insane, but none of these foibles are probed very deeply.

“That’s what I think everyone should aspire to in life—being shameless!” Jacobs exclaims, standing on his balcony in France, wearing nothing but itty-bitty underwear, the word “perfect” tattooed across his wrist. It doesn’t really matter if he is kidding because, in an effort to point out yet again just how very different the rich and fabulous are from you and me, the quotation becomes a neatly-placed caption. It splashes across the internet, typed into the About Me’s of high school students and burned into the hearts of misguided gay men.

Nearly everything in the piece justifies Jacobs’ ridiculousness, presenting a world in which, “you get the sense that you are breathing rare and expensive bottled air.” Really? In his plume of second-hand smoke, all you can garner is that you are poorer than him? Astute. If only the profile looked past that gray haze, she could point out that (perhaps) there is more to life—and to Marc Jacobs—than shamelessness. If there is.

Photo from Flickr user blogsorbeta under the Creative Commons