The basic facts
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. It sells 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. After opening that marc jacobs wallets first SoHo store in 1997, the flagship has come to be 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. 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, on the brand’s own timeline
- Headquarters: the company sits in New York City
- Owners since 1 September 2026: the pairing of WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group
- Chief Executive: Eric Marechalle, running the company since 2017
- Labels still running: Marc Jacobs, The Marc Jacobs, Heaven by Marc Jacobs
The designer behind it
Marc Jacobs was born in New York City in 1963 and studied at Parsons School of Design, graduating in 1984. The youngest ever winner of the CFDA’s Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent, he took the prize while still a student. He arrived at Perry Ellis in 1988 and in November 1992 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. 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. 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 labels under one name
Across the history of the Marc Jacobs brand, four names matter, and three are still in use. Runway collections and the priciest products belong to the main line, which carries the plain name. Below the main line, for fourteen years, sat a diffusion line, Marc by Marc Jacobs. The Marc Jacobs, created to occupy that space, sits above the price floor. With its own art direction and price band, Heaven by Marc Jacobs stands separate from them. Extensions that are not fashion labels are also run by the company: 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. The Tote Bag, The Snapshot and The Scene are the bag categories, plus groupings for crossbody, mini, shoulder bags and totes. Launched in 2019 and reinvented each season, The Tote Bag is the largest family. 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. 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. It ran fourteen years and was how plenty of 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. What that did was remove a distinct price tier from the business rather than simply rename it. 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
The Marc Jacobs was announced in December 2018 and launched for pre-fall 2019, about four years after the diffusion line closed. Functionally descended from Marc by Marc Jacobs, it is a lower-priced sub-label built to reoccupy the tier the company had vacated. Holding the canvas totes and much of the everyday accessory range, it is in practice the line most casual buyers meet. Online, those products are still tagged as part of “THE collection,” the quickest way to identify one. The definite article is no accident and is capitalized, so it is written 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
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. The company describes it as a gateway into what it terms the omniverse of Marc Jacobs subversion, and quotes Jacobs saying that “Heaven is a world within our Marc Jacobs world”. The price band 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 sat in the range, and standalone stores run in Los Angeles, New York and London. Product names carry artist collaborations, among them 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.
Ownership and who runs it
The same answer served the question of who owns Marc Jacobs for nearly thirty years, before it changed in 2026. The year Jacobs took up the Louis Vuitton role, 1997, was also when LVMH acquired a majority stake, 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. In 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. 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 remains Founder and Creative Director, and the closing announcement committed to continuity of the creative vision, collections and shows; Eric Marechalle has been chief executive since 2017.
| The year | The milestone |
|---|---|
| 1963 | Marc Jacobs born in New York City |
| 1984 | Graduates Parsons; brand timeline dates the founding here |
| 1988 | Starts at Perry Ellis |
| 1992 to 1993 | Grunge collection, then the parting with Perry Ellis |
| 1997 | The Louis Vuitton role begins; LVMH takes a majority stake; the SoHo store opens |
| 2001 | Launch of Marc by Marc Jacobs |
| 2007 | Daisy fragrance goes on sale |
| 2010 | Bookmarc opens on Bleecker Street |
| 2013 | His last Louis Vuitton collection, in October |
| 2014 | Debut of Marc Jacobs Beauty |
| 2015 | Marc by Marc Jacobs comes to an end |
| 2019 | The Marc Jacobs and The Tote Bag arrive; watches end after November |
| 2020 | Heaven by Marc Jacobs launches 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. Early February holds the one show of the year, a few days before New York Fashion Week opens and deliberately off schedule. The collections are seasonless and named for the year, which is why 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. Coverage in the trade press of 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 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. Past the bags come 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 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 tilts 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.
