The starting facts
Marc Jacobs, an American fashion house based in New York, 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. Since the first SoHo store opened in 1997, the flagship has come to be 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 the tote bag medium they stood in late September 2026. The singular search phrase “marc jacob overview” sends plenty of readers here, who should note the correct spelling carries a plural, Jacobs.
- Founder and Creative Director: Marc Jacobs, who was born in New York City in 1963
- Founding year: 1984, by the brand’s own timeline
- Main office: New York City
- Owners since 1 September 2026: the pairing of WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group
- Chief Executive: Eric Marechalle, in post since 2017
- Active labels: Marc Jacobs, The Marc Jacobs, Heaven by Marc Jacobs
The man himself
Marc Jacobs was born in New York City in 1963 and trained at Parsons School of Design, graduating in 1984. The youngest ever winner of the CFDA’s Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent, he won it while still a student. 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. By his own timeline the “Original Grunge Collection” belongs to 1993 and a redux is listed 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 label family
Four names are worth knowing in the history of the Marc Jacobs brand, and three are still in use. The runway collections and the dearest products sit with the main line, which carries the plain name. A diffusion line, Marc by Marc Jacobs, sat below it for fourteen years. Just above the price floor sits The Marc Jacobs, created to occupy that space. Separate again is Heaven by Marc Jacobs, which has its own art direction and price band. Offshoots that are not fashion labels also run under the company: 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. 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 is the biggest family, 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. A first showing on the 2022 runway introduced The Sack Bag, and The Scene now has its own place in the site navigation. Framed 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 arrived in 2001 as the diffusion line, aimed at a younger, cheaper end of the market. Across fourteen years it was how many shoppers first came across the designer. The company discontinued the line in 2015, after the fall and winter collection, and folded it back into the main line. Rather than a simple renaming, it took a distinct price tier out of the business. Buyers still come across 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 announced in December 2018 and 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. Most casual buyers meet this line rather than the others, since it holds 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. Capitalized on purpose, the definite article gives the written form The Marc Jacobs. Most of the price confusion around the label traces back to mixing it up with the main line.
Heaven by Marc Jacobs
The launch of Heaven by Marc Jacobs came in September 2020 under art director Ava Nirui, and it was 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. The range ran to roughly 153 products, and it runs standalone stores in Los Angeles, New York and London. Names of collaborating artists appear on products, including 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.
Ownership and who runs it
Who owns Marc Jacobs was a question with one answer for nearly thirty years, until it changed in 2026. LVMH took a majority stake in 1997, the year Jacobs took up the Louis Vuitton role, and the exact percentage was never published. LVMH set out a 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. Under that structure 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. The transaction was put at roughly $925 million by Business of Fashion and WWD, but LVMH disclosed no value, so that figure 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 comes into the world in New York City |
| 1984 | Graduates from Parsons; the 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 | The Louis Vuitton job starts; LVMH acquires a majority stake; the SoHo store opens |
| 2001 | Launch of Marc by Marc Jacobs |
| 2007 | Daisy fragrance goes on sale |
| 2010 | Bleecker Street gets Bookmarc |
| 2013 | October brings the final Louis Vuitton collection |
| 2014 | Marc Jacobs Beauty comes to market |
| 2015 | Marc by Marc Jacobs stops |
| 2019 | The Marc Jacobs launches alongside The Tote Bag; watches end after November |
| 2020 | Heaven by Marc Jacobs arrives in September |
| 2026 | The purchase from LVMH by WHP Global and G-III completes on 1 September |
The showing rhythm
Unlike most houses of its size, the company does not follow the four-season calendar they still use. There is one show a year, in early February, a few days before New York Fashion Week opens and deliberately off schedule. The name runway collections, rather than spring or fall lines, follows from collections that are seasonless and named for the year. 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.
What is on sale 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. Canvas totes start 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. Outside bags the offer runs to ready-to-wear, shoes, wallets, jewelry, eyewear and children’s products, plus a permanent discount section called MARCDOWN. The fragrance business 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. 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.