The groundwork
Marc Jacobs is an American fashion house based in New York, owned since September 2026 by a partnership of WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group. Ready-to-wear, bags, leather goods, shoes, jewelry, eyewear and fragrance make up the range, with handbags as marc jacobs its core. The shows land roughly once a year, in early February, outside the official New York Fashion Week calendar. SoHo took the first store in 1997, and its flagship today is at 127–129 Prince Street in Manhattan. The designer, the labels, the corporate set-up and the range are what this marc jacobs overview covers, as they stood in late September 2026. If you came in on the singular search phrase “marc jacob overview”, be aware that the correct spelling carries a plural, Jacobs.
- Founder and Creative Director: Marc Jacobs, born in 1963 in New York City
- Founding year: 1984, per the brand’s own timeline
- Base: New York City
- Owners since 1 September 2026: the partnership of WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group
- Chief Executive: Eric Marechalle, running the company since 2017
- Labels in use: Marc Jacobs, The Marc Jacobs, Heaven by Marc Jacobs
The designer in brief
Born in New York City in 1963 and schooled at Parsons School of Design, Marc Jacobs took his degree in 1984. The youngest ever winner of the CFDA’s Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent, he took the prize while still a student. He joined Perry Ellis in 1988 and in November 1992 showed the grunge-inflected spring 1993 collection that made his name and cost him the job. The “Original Grunge Collection” is recorded on his own timeline to 1993 and a redux is listed in 2018. Louis Vuitton named him its first creative director in 1997, and there he created its first ready-to-wear and ran artist collaborations with Takashi Murakami, Stephen Sprouse, Richard Prince and Yayoi Kusama. Nicolas Ghesquière succeeded him after he showed his last Louis Vuitton collection in October 2013, and he remains Founder and Creative Director of his own company.
The labels under one name
Four names count in the history of the Marc Jacobs brand, and three are still in use. The main line carries the plain name and holds the runway collections and the priciest products. Below the main line, for fourteen years, sat a diffusion line, Marc by Marc Jacobs. Just above the price floor sits The Marc Jacobs, created to occupy that space. Heaven by Marc Jacobs stands separate from them, with its own art direction and price band. It also runs extensions that are not fashion labels: Bookmarc, Marc Jacobs Beauty and the Bark Jacobs dog line.
Marc Jacobs
Every other label traces back to the main line, which is the runway business. On the bag side the categories are The Tote Bag, The Snapshot and The Scene, plus groupings for crossbody, mini, shoulder bags and totes. The Tote Bag heads the families by size, launched in 2019 and reinvented each season. The Snapshot is a camera-bag shape the brand says was conceived in a Parisian studio with its design team. The Sack Bag first appeared on the 2022 runway, and The Scene now has its own place in the site navigation. The line “No more Birkins, only Tote Bags,” is attributed by the company to Jacobs, framing it as a rejection of exclusivity rather than a pursuit of it.
Marc by Marc Jacobs
Marc by Marc Jacobs arrived in 2001 as the diffusion line, aimed at a younger, cheaper end of the market. It ran fourteen years and was how plenty of shoppers first encountered the designer. Discontinued in 2015, after the fall and winter collection, the line was folded back into the main line. That removed a distinct price tier from the business rather than simply renaming it. Buyers meet the label today only on resale pieces from that period, the only place it now exists. Because it is routinely confused with the sub-label that replaced it, recognising the name matters.
The Marc Jacobs
The announcement came in December 2018 and The Marc Jacobs launched for pre-fall 2019, about four years after the diffusion line closed. The tier the company had vacated is what this lower-priced sub-label, descended in function from Marc by Marc Jacobs, was built to reoccupy. In practice this is the line most casual buyers meet, holding the canvas totes and much of the everyday accessory range. The online tag on those products is still “THE collection,” the quickest way to identify one. Because the definite article is deliberate and capitalized, it is written The Marc Jacobs. The price confusion around the label is largely the result of mixing it up with the main line.
Heaven by Marc Jacobs
Heaven by Marc Jacobs started in September 2020 under art director Ava Nirui, built around youth subculture and a gender-fluid, do-it-yourself sensibility. In the company’s own words it is a gateway into what it terms the omniverse of Marc Jacobs subversion, and Jacobs is quoted saying that “Heaven is a world within our Marc Jacobs world”. Pricing sits well under the main line, with bags around $150 to $250 and tees from about $65 on the US site in September 2026. Roughly 153 products sat in the range, and standalone stores run in Los Angeles, New York and London. You see artist collaborations in the product names, among them a David Rappeneau shoulder bag listed at about $175. Nirui’s exit was reported in January 2026 with no successor named, so the label’s current creative leadership is not confirmed by the brand.
The owners and the leadership
The question of who owns Marc Jacobs kept one answer for nearly thirty years before it changed in 2026. The LVMH majority stake dates to 1997, the year Jacobs took up the Louis Vuitton role, and the exact percentage was never published. LVMH announced the definitive agreement to sell the brand to WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group on 14 May 2026; the deal closed on 1 September 2026. The structure splits the business in two: a fifty-fifty joint venture owns the intellectual property with WHP Global leading licensing, while G-III operates the wholesale, retail and e-commerce business under a long-term license from that venture. A figure of roughly $925 million came from Business of Fashion and WWD, but LVMH disclosed no value, so it is press-reported rather than official. Founder and Creative Director is still Marc Jacobs, with the closing announcement committing to continuity of the creative vision, collections and shows; Eric Marechalle has been chief executive since 2017.
| The year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1963 | Marc Jacobs born, in New York City |
| 1984 | Graduation from Parsons; the brand timeline places the founding here |
| 1988 | Signs on at Perry Ellis |
| 1992 to 1993 | Grunge collection, then exit from Perry Ellis |
| 1997 | Louis Vuitton role begins; LVMH takes a majority stake; SoHo store opens |
| 2001 | Marc by Marc Jacobs goes on sale |
| 2007 | Launch of the Daisy fragrance |
| 2010 | Bookmarc opens on Bleecker Street |
| 2013 | The final Louis Vuitton collection comes in October |
| 2014 | Marc Jacobs Beauty comes to market |
| 2015 | Marc by Marc Jacobs is wound down |
| 2019 | The Marc Jacobs and The Tote Bag arrive; watches end after November |
| 2020 | Heaven by Marc Jacobs comes to market in September |
| 2026 | WHP Global and G-III finish the LVMH acquisition on 1 September |
How often it shows
The company does not work to the four-season calendar most houses of its size still use. Once a year, in early February, it shows, a few days before New York Fashion Week opens and deliberately off schedule. The collections are seasonless and take the name of the year, which is why they are called runway collections rather than spring or fall lines. Recent shows fell on 2 February 2024 at the Park Avenue Armory, on 3 February 2025 at the New York Public Library, and in February 2026 at the Armory again. Trade coverage of the 2026 show, titled “Memory. Loss.”, took it as a turn toward wearability. Whether it also showed during September 2026 fashion week remains unconfirmed, and on the established pattern the next outing falls in February 2027.
What the brand sells now
Commercially the core is handbags, with 312 products in the full bag listing on the US site in September 2026, across canvas, jacquard, leather, denim and seasonal fabrics. Canvas totes open at about $150 and leather totes climb to about $598, while The Dakota Tote sits at roughly $798, all figures that vary by country and change without notice. Outside bags the offer runs to ready-to-wear, shoes, wallets, jewelry, eyewear and children’s products, plus a permanent discount section called MARCDOWN. Fragrance began with Daisy in 2007, named after Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby. Marc Jacobs Beauty launched in 2014 and now operates under Coty, which relaunched the line in 2026, while watches were discontinued after November 2019 and carry no valid warranty. Physical retail tilts toward discount: the store locator listed 103 locations in September 2026, of which 46 were boutiques and 57 outlets, with Regent Street in London the only boutique in Europe.