The core 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. Ready-to-wear, bags, leather goods, shoes, jewelry, eyewear and fragrance fill the range, with handbags as its core. It stages a show roughly once a year, in early February, outside the official New York Fashion Week calendar. The label opened its first store in SoHo in 1997, and its flagship today marc jacobs is at 127–129 Prince Street in Manhattan. What follows in this marc jacobs overview is 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.

1. Founder and Creative Director: Marc Jacobs, born in New York City in 1963
2. Founding year: 1984, according to the brand’s own timeline
3. Headquarters: the house is run out of New York City
4. Owners since 1 September 2026: the partnership of WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group
5. Chief Executive: Eric Marechalle, in the role since 2017
6. Labels in use: Marc Jacobs, The Marc Jacobs, Heaven by Marc Jacobs

The founder

Marc Jacobs came into the world in New York City in 1963 and trained at Parsons School of Design, 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 hired 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. In 1997 he became the first creative director of 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 labels that share one name

Across the history of the Marc Jacobs brand, four names count, and three are still in use. The main line carries the plain name and holds the runway collections and the priciest products. Below it a diffusion line, Marc by Marc Jacobs, sat for fourteen years. Just above the price floor sits The Marc Jacobs, created to occupy that space. Apart from them stands Heaven by Marc Jacobs, with its own art direction and price band. The company also runs extensions that are not fashion labels: Bookmarc, Marc Jacobs Beauty and the Bark Jacobs dog line.

Marc Jacobs

The main line holds the runway business and started every other label. The bag categories are The Tote Bag, The Snapshot and The Scene, plus groupings for crossbody, mini, shoulder bags and totes. The Tote Bag is the biggest 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 turned up first on the 2022 runway, 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 came out 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. The company discontinued the line in 2015, after the fall and winter collection, and folded it back into the main line. A distinct price tier was removed from the business by that move rather than simply renamed. Buyers still find the label on resale pieces from that period, the only place it now exists. Knowing the name matters, because it is routinely confused with the sub-label that replaced it.

The Marc Jacobs

The announcement came in December 2018 and The Marc Jacobs 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. In practice it is the line most casual buyers meet, holding the canvas totes and much of the everyday accessory range. The online tag on those products is still “THE collection,” the quickest way to identify one. Deliberate and capitalized, the definite article means it is written The Marc Jacobs. The price confusion around the label is largely the result of mixing it up with the main line.

Heaven by Marc Jacobs

Launched 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. 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”. 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. The range ran to roughly 153 products, and it runs standalone stores in Los Angeles, New York and London. Product names carry artist collaborations, among them a David Rappeneau shoulder bag listed at about $175. Nirui left, as reported in January 2026, with no successor named, so the label’s current creative leadership is not confirmed by the brand.

The owners and the leadership

For nearly thirty years the question of who owns Marc Jacobs had one answer, 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. 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. Business of Fashion and WWD put the transaction at roughly $925 million, 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 showing rhythm

Unlike most houses of its size, the company does not follow the four-season calendar they still use. Once a year, in early February, it shows, 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 outings 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. Writing about the 2026 show, titled “Memory. Loss.”, the trade press read it as a turn toward wearability. Whether it also showed during September 2026 fashion week is not confirmed, and on the established pattern the next outing falls in February 2027.

What it sells today

Commercially the 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. Canvas totes open at about $150 and leather totes climb to 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. The first fragrance was 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. 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.