Fashion, arts, and entertainment have always been in conversation; few events make this more clear than fashion’s biggest night out–The Met Gala_which draws A-List celebrities, creatives, designers, and artists to benefit the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Marc Jacobs is a fixture at the Gala; the designer has attended with a number of iconic guests from Cher to to Kate Moss. Tonight it was actor and writer Rachel Sennott on the designer’s arm, wearing a color block ensemble which perfectly complemented his classic tux with exaggerated touches.

The theme of this year’s event is “Costume Art” and so its apt that Jacobs arrived with Sennott in tow. Not only is she a rising star in film and television–her HBO series I Love LA was lauded for, among other attributes, it’s impeccable costuming–the pair also teamed up for the latest Marc Jacobs campaign: The Scene, a scripted micro-drama which which features the brand’s newest bag by the same name. “We made a deliberate decision–we were not going to launch a bag, we were going to build a world, Kristin Patrick, Marc Jacobs CMO and Chief Digital Officer tells me. “The Scene Bag exists inside the narrative – it moves through it, it is part of it, but it is never announced. That is the difference between marketing and storytelling – one interrupts and the other invites you in.”

Lights, Camera, Advertise!

Television and movies have always influenced fashion and the way we dress; consider everything from the Devil Wears Prada 2–costumes for the film were making headlines even when it was still in production. Or, any number of prestige television series over the last decade; from the boardrooms of Succession to the hotel rooms of the White Louts: we love dressing like our favorite characters.

And so it tracks that the inverse would also be true; the fashion world is in constant dialogue with entertainment, a dynamic we’re seeing play out in myriad of ways through innovative marketing campaigns and brand initiatives. It’s not only what’s available on streaming; as Katie Deighton writing for the Wall Street Journal pointed out, “Fashion brands that long made bedfellows with art and music have lately been flirting with a nerdier muse: literature.” Just last month, Miu Miu hosted the fourth meeting of their Literary Club at Milan Design Week–the theme? The Politics of Desire. Using the works of Annie Ernaux and Ama Ata Aidoo, the event sought to unpack the complex and nuanced relationship between consent, desire, and relationships.

Marc Jacobs is no stranger to this kind of multidisciplinary approach; those of us who fell in love with the brand through the early and mid-aughts will remember Marc By Marc Jacobs’ collaborations with Blondie and Rufus Wainwright; coveted bags branded with the old school Pan Am logo and T-shirts printed with celebrities baring all for skin cancer awareness.

“Marc Jacobs has always existed at the intersection of culture: literature, art, film, fashion,” says Patrick. “This is a brand that has never operated in a single dimension, but what has changed is the consumer. People do not engage with culture in channels anymore. They move fluidly between social, streaming, fashion, and entertainment, often simultaneously. So the idea of a single, seasonal campaign moment is increasingly out of sync with how people actually live.” Enter: Question Marc, a new platform that she says is designed to unfold over time. The Scene is only the first chapter in what she says will be an ongoing narrative that allows the brand to engage with the zeitgeist in real time, instead of simply reacting to it.

And consumers, it seems, are hungry for something more thoughtful and authentic than a straightforward ad campaign. Patrick says these campaigns resonate because “they respect how people actually consume culture.”

“No one is sitting and waiting to be marketed to, but they will follow a story,” she says. “When you create characters, tension, humor, and something with continuity – you move from being something people scroll past to something they engage with, talk about, and come back to. That is a fundamentally different relationship.”

With his reputation for thinking outside the box, Jacobs seems perfectly poised to show us how it’s done–this isn’t a pivot for the brand, it’s an authentic expression of the creative power it houses. “What we are building is not a campaign cycle. It is an operating system,” she says. “The goal is not to create isolated moments, it is to build a world people want to keep stepping into.”

Stars Align

In the social media mini series, Sennott is joined by a who’s who of fashion, entertainment, and social media elite: Francesca Scorsese, Morgan Maher, True Whitaker, and Sandra Bernhard. For Scorsese, who is entertainment royalty, Sennott’s vision was critical to bringing this to life. “Being part of The Scene was really fun because it didn’t feel like a traditional fashion campaign — it felt more like stepping into a story that already had its own rhythm and personality,” she tells me. “Rachel created this world that’s chaotic, funny, and very New York, and Marc Jacobs has this instinct for letting those moments feel natural instead of overly polished.”

It’s a sentiment that Patrick shares. “Rachel was critical to making this work. She brought a very distinct voice as both a writer and performer, which shaped the tone in a way that feels natural, not constructed,” she tells me. “The humor, the pacing, even the awkwardness is intentional because it mirrors how people actually interact. She also had a hand in shaping the cast, pulling in her girl gang and helping build the chemistry and world from the inside out.”

The final cast member in this production is of course, the Met Gala. “Marc Jacobs is such an iconic brand – the Met Gala, too, is such an institution,” says Patrick. But it goes even deeper than pairing fashion’s elite; it’s about ethos and message. “The Met sits at the exact intersection the story is exploring: fashion, celebrity, entertainment, and the idea of being seen,” says Patrick. “By grounding the story in a real cultural moment that audiences are already emotionally invested in, we blur the line between fiction and reality. That is where it becomes powerful, when it no longer feels like a campaign at all.”

In The Scene, Rachel runs around New York in a frenzy, trying to court the attention of Anna Wintour and snag an invite to the hottest night in fashion: The Met Gala. “In the story, In the narrative, Rachel’s pursuit of an invitation becomes symbolic of something much bigger: access, recognition, validation,” says Patrick. And as we saw on the gala’s red carpet: the story has a happy ending. The narrative arc of the fictional series ends very neatly at the real Met Gala, where Marc Jacobs attended tonight with Sennott as his guest.