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. Its range covers ready-to-wear, bags, leather goods, shoes, jewelry, eyewear and fragrance, with handbags as its core. Roughly once a year, in early February, it puts on a show, outside the official New York Fashion Week calendar. Since the first SoHo store opened in 1997, the flagship has come to be at 127–129 Prince Street in Manhattan. The ground this https://marcjacob.org/ marc jacobs overview covers is the designer, the labels, the corporate structure and the range 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, a New Yorker born in the city in 1963
- Founding year: 1984, as the brand’s own timeline has it
- Headquarters: the company sits in New York City
- Owners since 1 September 2026: WHP Global alongside G-III Apparel Group
- Chief Executive: Eric Marechalle, running the company since 2017
- Active labels: 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. Still a student, he became the youngest ever winner of the CFDA’s Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent. Perry Ellis signed him 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. His Louis Vuitton appointment 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. 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 label family
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. Underneath it sat a diffusion line, Marc by Marc Jacobs, for fourteen years. The Marc Jacobs, created to occupy that space, sits above the price floor. Apart from them stands Heaven by Marc Jacobs, 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
The main line is where the runway business sits and where every other label began. 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 largest family is The Tote Bag, 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. 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 credited 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 for fourteen years and was how many shoppers first encountered the designer. The line came to an end in 2015, after the fall and winter collection, and went back into the main line. Rather than a simple renaming, it took a distinct price tier out of the business. The label now turns up only on resale pieces from that period, the only place it exists. Because it is routinely confused with the sub-label that replaced it, recognising the name matters.
The Marc Jacobs
An announcement in December 2018 was followed by a launch 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. Online, those products are still tagged as part of “THE collection,” the quickest way to identify one. Because the definite article is deliberate and capitalized, it is written The Marc Jacobs. Much of the price confusion around the label comes from mixing it up with the main line.
Heaven by Marc Jacobs
Started in September 2020 under art director Ava Nirui, Heaven by Marc Jacobs was built around youth subculture and a gender-fluid, do-it-yourself sensibility. A gateway into what the company terms the omniverse of Marc Jacobs subversion is how it is described, and Jacobs is quoted saying that “Heaven is a world within our Marc Jacobs world”. On price it sits well under the main line, with bags around $150 to $250 and tees from about $65 on the US site in September 2026. The range held roughly 153 products, and standalone stores operate in Los Angeles, New York and London. Names of collaborating artists appear on products, including a David Rappeneau shoulder bag listed at about $175. News of Nirui’s departure came in January 2026 with no successor named, so the label’s current creative leadership is not confirmed by the brand.
Ownership and the people in charge
The same answer served the question of who owns Marc Jacobs for nearly thirty years, 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. On 14 May 2026 LVMH made public a definitive agreement to sell the brand to WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group; 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. 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. Marc Jacobs stays on 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 | The milestone |
|---|---|
| 1963 | New York City sees the birth of Marc Jacobs |
| 1984 | Graduates Parsons; brand timeline dates the founding here |
| 1988 | Arrives at Perry Ellis |
| 1992 to 1993 | The grunge collection and then the exit from Perry Ellis |
| 1997 | The Louis Vuitton job starts; LVMH acquires a majority stake; the SoHo store opens |
| 2001 | Marc by Marc Jacobs launches |
| 2007 | Daisy fragrance arrives |
| 2010 | Bookmarc opens on Bleecker Street |
| 2013 | Last Louis Vuitton collection, in October |
| 2014 | Marc Jacobs Beauty launches |
| 2015 | Marc by Marc Jacobs comes to an end |
| 2019 | Launch of The Marc Jacobs and The Tote Bag; watches end after November |
| 2020 | Heaven by Marc Jacobs arrives in September |
| 2026 | The LVMH acquisition by WHP Global and G-III completes on 1 September |
The show cadence
The company does not follow 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. The recent editions were staged 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. Writing about the 2026 show, titled “Memory. Loss.”, the trade press read it as a turn toward wearability. No confirmation exists on 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 are 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. Ready-to-wear, shoes, wallets, jewelry, eyewear and children’s products sit beyond bags, plus a permanent discount section called MARCDOWN. Fragrance dates to 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 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.