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The basic facts

Marc Jacobs is an American fashion house with its base in New York, owned since September 2026 by a partnership of WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group. Ready-to-wear, bags, leather goods, shoes, jewelry, eyewear jacobsbag.net and fragrance make up the range, 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. SoHo got the first store in 1997, and its flagship today sits at 127–129 Prince Street in Manhattan. The designer, the labels, the corporate structure 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.

1. Founder and Creative Director: Marc Jacobs, a New Yorker born in the city in 1963
2. Founding year: 1984, by the brand’s own timeline
3. Main office: New York City
4. Owners since 1 September 2026: WHP Global alongside G-III Apparel Group
5. Chief Executive: Eric Marechalle, in the job since 2017
6. Current labels: Marc Jacobs, The Marc Jacobs, Heaven by Marc Jacobs

The man himself

Born in New York City in 1963 and trained at Parsons School of Design, Marc Jacobs graduated in 1984. As a student 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. The «Original Grunge Collection» is recorded on his own timeline 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. The final Louis Vuitton collection he showed came in October 2013, Nicolas Ghesquière succeeded him, and he remains Founder and Creative Director of his own company.

The labels under one name

Four names matter in the history of the Marc Jacobs brand, 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. 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. The company also runs extensions that are not fashion labels: 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 bag categories are The Tote Bag, The Snapshot and The Scene, plus groupings for crossbody, mini, shoulder bags and totes. The Tote Bag heads the families by size, 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. 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 started 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. 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. Resale pieces from that period are where buyers still find the label, the only place it now exists. Recognising the name matters, 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. It is a cheaper sub-label descended in function from Marc by Marc Jacobs, 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. Look for the online tag «THE collection,» which the company still applies and which is the quickest way to identify one. Capitalized on purpose, the definite article gives the written form The Marc Jacobs. Much of the price confusion around the label comes from 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. The company calls it 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». 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 held roughly 153 products, and standalone stores operate in Los Angeles, New York and London. Collaborations with artists turn up in product names, including a David Rappeneau shoulder bag listed at about $175. Reports in January 2026 covered Nirui’s departure with no successor named, so the label’s current creative leadership is not confirmed by the brand.

Ownership and the people in charge

The question of who owns Marc Jacobs had one answer for nearly thirty years before it changed in 2026. The LVMH majority stake dates to 1997, the year Jacobs took up the Louis Vuitton role, and the exact percentage was never published. LVMH announced the 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. 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. A figure of roughly $925 million came from Business of Fashion and WWD, but LVMH disclosed no value, so it 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

The four-season calendar that most houses of its size still use is one the company does not follow. 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 take the name of the year, which is why they are called runway collections rather than spring or fall lines. Recent shows fell 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 is on sale 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 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. Beyond bags the range takes in 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 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. Discount weighs heavily in 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.