The groundwork
A New York-based American fashion house, 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. It presents roughly once a year, in early February, outside the official New York Fashion Week calendar. After opening that jacobsbag.net first SoHo store 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 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, according to the brand’s own timeline
- Main office: New York City
- Owners since 1 September 2026: WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group
- Chief Executive: Eric Marechalle, at the helm since 2017
- Active 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. 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 puts the “Original Grunge Collection” to 1993 and lists a redux in 2018. In 1997 he took the job of first creative director at Louis Vuitton, where he created its first ready-to-wear and ran artist collaborations with Takashi Murakami, Stephen Sprouse, Richard Prince and Yayoi Kusama. The final Louis Vuitton collection he showed came in October 2013, was succeeded by Nicolas Ghesquière, and remains Founder and Creative Director of his own company.
The separate lines under one name
Out 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 belong to the main line, which carries the plain name. Fourteen years of a diffusion line, Marc by Marc Jacobs, sat below it. The Marc Jacobs sits above the price floor, created to occupy that space. With its own art direction and price band, Heaven by Marc Jacobs stands separate from them. 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 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 Tote Bag forms the largest family, 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 Sack Bag first appeared on the 2022 runway, 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 arrived in 2001 as the diffusion line, aimed at a younger, cheaper end of the market. For fourteen years it ran, and it was how many shoppers first encountered the designer. The line was discontinued in 2015, after the fall and winter collection, and folded back into the main line. That took a distinct price tier out of the business rather than simply renaming it. Buyers still come across the label 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 Marc Jacobs was announced in December 2018 and launched for pre-fall 2019, about four years after the diffusion line closed. It is a lower-priced sub-label descended 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. Look for the online tag “THE collection,” which the company still applies and which is the quickest way to identify one. The definite article is deliberate and capitalized, so 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 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 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”. 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. Roughly 153 products made up the range, 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. 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 leadership
The question of who owns Marc Jacobs kept one answer for nearly thirty years before it changed in 2026. LVMH acquired a majority stake in 1997, the year Jacobs took up the Louis Vuitton role, and the exact percentage was never published. A definitive agreement to sell the brand to WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group was announced by LVMH 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 both reported roughly $925 million for the transaction, 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.
| Year in question | The milestone |
|---|---|
| 1963 | Marc Jacobs born, in New York City |
| 1984 | Graduation from Parsons; the brand timeline places the founding here |
| 1988 | Takes a job at Perry Ellis |
| 1992 to 1993 | Grunge collection, and then departure from Perry Ellis |
| 1997 | Louis Vuitton role starts; LVMH buys a majority stake; SoHo store opens |
| 2001 | Marc by Marc Jacobs comes to market |
| 2007 | Daisy fragrance arrives |
| 2010 | Bookmarc sets up on Bleecker Street |
| 2013 | October brings the final Louis Vuitton collection |
| 2014 | Debut of Marc Jacobs Beauty |
| 2015 | Marc by Marc Jacobs discontinued |
| 2019 | The Marc Jacobs launches alongside The Tote Bag; watches end after November |
| 2020 | Debut of Heaven by Marc Jacobs in September |
| 2026 | The LVMH acquisition by WHP Global and G-III completes on 1 September |
The pattern of the shows
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. Seasonless and named for the year, the collections 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. The trade press covering the 2026 show, titled “Memory. Loss.”, read it as a turn toward wearability. Whether a show also took place during September 2026 fashion week is not confirmed, and on the established pattern the next outing falls in February 2027.
What is on sale today
Handbags form 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. 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. 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 dates to 2014 and now operates under Coty, which relaunched the line in 2026, while watches were discontinued after November 2019 and carry no valid warranty. Discount dominates physical retail: 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.