Here, on Bleeker Street, on the former site of a lovely antique shop, Marc Jacobs is paying some wretched NYU drama student to hop around in his window in a frightening rat costume. I tried to get some pictures of passers-by averting their eyes from the humiliation, but everyone was either moving too fast or crossing the street to avoid the shameful spectacle.
Jacobs has staked his claim on any number of village locations in efforts to maintain the sales of his Banana Republic-esque designs, which, as the vernacular would have it, suck. Now we can add fursuit exploitation and child trauma to the list of his many crimes.
Here’s a fantasy: the NYU grad students union organizes a protest against inhumane working conditions for mascots at Marc Jacobs and set up one of those enormous inflatable rats right outside the storefront. A rat-to-rat face-off?
Brilliant idea!