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. The product range takes in ready-to-wear, bags, leather goods, shoes, jewelry, eyewear and fragrance, with handbags as its core. It stages a show roughly once a year, in early February, outside mark jacobs the official New York Fashion Week calendar. SoHo took the first store in 1997, and its flagship today stands 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”, keep in mind 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, by 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, who has held the post since 2017
- Current labels: Marc Jacobs, The Marc Jacobs, Heaven by Marc Jacobs
The designer behind it
New York City in 1963 was where Marc Jacobs was born, and Parsons School of Design was where he trained, graduating in 1984. He was still studying when he became the youngest ever winner of the CFDA’s Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent. His Perry Ellis years started in 1988 and in November 1992 he showed the grunge-inflected spring 1993 collection that made his name and cost him the job. The “Original Grunge Collection” is placed on his own timeline to 1993 and a redux is listed in 2018. Louis Vuitton appointed 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. 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 a single name
Across the history of the Marc Jacobs brand, four names carry weight, and three are still in use. The plain name belongs to the main line, which holds the runway collections and the priciest products. Below it sat a diffusion line, Marc by Marc Jacobs, for fourteen years. Just above the price floor sits The Marc Jacobs, created to occupy that space. Heaven by Marc Jacobs sits apart, with its own art direction and price band. Offshoots that are not fashion labels are also run by the company: 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. The Tote Bag, The Snapshot and The Scene are the bag categories, plus groupings for crossbody, mini, shoulder bags and totes. The largest family is The Tote Bag, launched in 2019 and reinvented each season. A camera-bag shape, The Snapshot was, the brand says, conceived in a Parisian studio with its design team. The 2022 runway gave The Sack Bag its first outing, and The Scene now has its own place in the site navigation. The company credits Jacobs with the line “No more Birkins, only Tote Bags,” 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. Fourteen years of trading made it the way many shoppers first encountered the designer. An end came for the line in 2015, after the fall and winter collection, when it 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. Routine confusion with the sub-label that replaced it is why 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 cheaper sub-label descended in function from Marc by Marc Jacobs, built to reoccupy the tier the company had vacated. Most casual buyers meet this line rather than the others, since it holds the canvas totes and much of the everyday accessory range. The company still tags those products online 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. Mix it up with the main line and you get much of the price confusion around the label.
Heaven by Marc Jacobs
Heaven by Marc Jacobs arrived 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 framing 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”. Prices sit 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. Artist collaborations show up in product names, including a David Rappeneau shoulder bag listed at about $175. In January 2026 Nirui’s departure was reported with no successor named, so the label’s current creative leadership is not confirmed by the brand.
Who owns it and who runs it
The question of who owns Marc Jacobs had one answer for nearly thirty years before it changed in 2026. LVMH bought its majority stake in 1997, the year Jacobs took up the Louis Vuitton role, and the exact percentage was never published. On 14 May 2026 LVMH announced a definitive agreement to sell the brand to WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group; 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. 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 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.
| Year | The milestone |
|---|---|
| 1963 | New York City sees the birth of Marc Jacobs |
| 1984 | Graduates Parsons; brand timeline dates the founding here |
| 1988 | Takes a job at Perry Ellis |
| 1992 to 1993 | Grunge collection, followed by his exit from Perry Ellis |
| 1997 | Louis Vuitton role begins; LVMH takes a majority stake; SoHo store opens |
| 2001 | Debut of Marc by Marc Jacobs |
| 2007 | Daisy fragrance launches |
| 2010 | Bookmarc opens its doors on Bleecker Street |
| 2013 | His last Louis Vuitton collection, in October |
| 2014 | Debut of Marc Jacobs Beauty |
| 2015 | End of Marc by Marc Jacobs |
| 2019 | The Marc Jacobs launches alongside The Tote Bag; watches end after November |
| 2020 | Debut of Heaven by Marc Jacobs in September |
| 2026 | WHP Global and G-III close the LVMH acquisition on 1 September |
The show cadence
The company does not follow the four-season calendar most houses of its size still use. It shows once a year, 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 editions ran 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. Nothing confirms whether it also showed during September 2026 fashion week, and on the established pattern the next outing falls in February 2027.
What the brand sells today
The commercial 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. Starting at about $150 for canvas totes and reaching about $598, while The Dakota Tote sits at roughly $798, the prices are 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. Fragrance goes back to Daisy in 2007, named after Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby. Marc Jacobs Beauty started 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. On the ground the estate leans toward discount, since 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.