The starting facts
An American fashion house based in New York, Marc Jacobs has been owned since September 2026 by a partnership of WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group. The company sells ready-to-wear, bags, leather goods, shoes, jewelry, eyewear and fragrance, with handbags as its core. Collections arrive roughly once a year, in early February, outside the official New York Fashion Week calendar. SoHo got the first store in 1997, and its flagship today marc jacobs crossbody sits at 127–129 Prince Street in Manhattan. This marc jacobs overview covers the designer, the labels, the corporate structure and the range as they stood in late September 2026. Readers arriving from the singular search phrase “marc jacob overview” should note the correct spelling carries a plural, Jacobs.
- Founder and Creative Director: Marc Jacobs, a New Yorker born in the city in 1963
- Founding year: 1984, according to the brand’s own timeline
- Headquarters: the company sits in New York City
- Owners since 1 September 2026: WHP Global together with G-III Apparel Group
- Chief Executive: Eric Marechalle, in post since 2017
- Labels in use: Marc Jacobs, The Marc Jacobs, Heaven by Marc Jacobs
The designer in brief
Marc Jacobs came into the world in New York City in 1963 and trained at Parsons School of Design, graduating in 1984. As a student he became the youngest ever winner of the CFDA’s Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent. Perry Ellis took him on in 1988 and in November 1992 he showed the grunge-inflected spring 1993 collection that made his name and cost him the job. His own timeline places the “Original Grunge Collection” to 1993 and lists a redux in 2018. The Louis Vuitton role came in 1997, the first creative director the house had, and he created its first ready-to-wear and ran artist collaborations with Takashi Murakami, Stephen Sprouse, Richard Prince and Yayoi Kusama. His last Louis Vuitton collection was shown in October 2013, he was succeeded by Nicolas Ghesquière, and he remains Founder and Creative Director of his own company.
The labels under one name
Of the four names that matter in the history of the Marc Jacobs brand, three are still in use. The runway collections and the dearest products sit with the main line, which carries the plain name. Below it sat a diffusion line, Marc by Marc Jacobs, for fourteen years. Created to occupy that space, The Marc Jacobs sits above the price floor. Apart from them stands Heaven by Marc Jacobs, with its own art direction and price band. Beyond the labels the company runs extensions that are not fashion labels: Bookmarc, Marc Jacobs Beauty and the Bark Jacobs dog line.
Marc Jacobs
The main line is the runway business and the source of every other label. Its bag categories run to The Tote Bag, The Snapshot and The Scene, with groupings for crossbody, mini, shoulder bags and totes. The Tote Bag forms the largest family, launched in 2019 and reinvented each season. The Snapshot takes a camera-bag shape the brand says was conceived in a Parisian studio with its design team. First seen on the 2022 runway, The Sack Bag joined the range, and The Scene now has its own place in the site navigation. Cast as a rejection of exclusivity rather than a pursuit of it, the line “No more Birkins, only Tote Bags,” is attributed by the company to Jacobs.
Marc by Marc Jacobs
Marc by Marc Jacobs started in 2001 as the diffusion line, aimed at a younger, cheaper end of the market. It ran for fourteen years and was how many 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 still find the label on resale pieces from that period, the only place it now exists. The name is worth recognising, because it is routinely confused with the sub-label that replaced it.
The Marc Jacobs
The Marc Jacobs was unveiled in December 2018 and launched for pre-fall 2019, about four years after the diffusion line closed. It is a lower-priced sub-label that descends in function from Marc by Marc Jacobs, built to reoccupy the tier the company had vacated. In practice this is the line most casual buyers meet, holding the canvas totes and much of the everyday accessory range. The company still marks those products online as part of “THE collection,” the quickest way to identify one. The definite article is intentional and capitalized, so it is written The Marc Jacobs. Confusing it with the main line explains much of the price confusion around the label.
Heaven by Marc Jacobs
Heaven by Marc Jacobs launched 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”. Well under the main line on price, it had bags around $150 to $250 and tees from about $65 on the US site in September 2026. The catalogue stretched to roughly 153 products, and it runs standalone stores 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 departure was reported in January 2026 with no successor named, so the label’s current creative leadership is not confirmed by the brand.
Ownership and leadership
For nearly thirty years the question of who owns Marc Jacobs had one answer, before it changed in 2026. A majority stake went to LVMH in 1997, the year Jacobs took up the Louis Vuitton role, and the exact percentage was never published. The announcement from LVMH of a definitive agreement to sell the brand to WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group came on 14 May 2026; the deal closed on 1 September 2026. The arrangement 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. Business of Fashion and WWD placed the transaction at roughly $925 million, but LVMH disclosed no value, so that figure is press-reported rather than official. Marc Jacobs continues as Founder and Creative Director, with the closing announcement committing to continuity of the creative vision, collections and shows; Eric Marechalle has been chief executive since 2017.
| The year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1963 | New York City sees the birth of Marc Jacobs |
| 1984 | Graduates from Parsons; the brand timeline dates the founding here |
| 1988 | Begins work at Perry Ellis |
| 1992 to 1993 | Grunge collection, followed by his exit from Perry Ellis |
| 1997 | The Louis Vuitton role begins; LVMH takes a majority stake; the SoHo store opens |
| 2001 | Marc by Marc Jacobs launches |
| 2007 | Launch of the Daisy fragrance |
| 2010 | Bookmarc opens its doors on Bleecker Street |
| 2013 | Final Louis Vuitton collection in October |
| 2014 | Debut of Marc Jacobs Beauty |
| 2015 | Marc by Marc Jacobs stops |
| 2019 | The Marc Jacobs launches alongside The Tote Bag; watches end after November |
| 2020 | Heaven by Marc Jacobs comes to market in September |
| 2026 | The purchase from LVMH by WHP Global and G-III completes on 1 September |
The show cadence
Unlike most houses of its size, the company does not follow the four-season calendar they still use. The single show lands in early February, a few days before New York Fashion Week opens and deliberately off schedule. Because the collections are seasonless and named for the year, they are called runway collections rather than spring or fall lines. Recent dates were 2 February 2024 at the Park Avenue Armory, 3 February 2025 at the New York Public Library, and February 2026 at the Armory again. Writing about the 2026 show, titled “Memory. Loss.”, the trade press read it as a turn toward wearability. It is not confirmed whether it also showed during September 2026 fashion week, and on the established pattern the next outing falls in February 2027.
The range today
Handbags sit at the commercial core, with 312 products in the full bag listing on the US site in September 2026, across canvas, jacquard, leather, denim and seasonal fabrics. The entry point is canvas totes at about $150 and leather totes reach about $598, while The Dakota Tote sits at roughly $798, all figures that vary by country and change without notice. Past the bags come ready-to-wear, shoes, wallets, jewelry, eyewear and children’s products, plus a permanent discount section called MARCDOWN. Daisy started the fragrance business 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. Bricks-and-mortar retail leans 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.
