The essentials

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. SoHo got marc jacobs store the first store in 1997, and its flagship today sits at 127–129 Prince Street in Manhattan. This marc jacobs overview takes in 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, a New Yorker born in the city in 1963
2. Founding year: 1984, on the brand’s own timeline
3. Headquarters: the company sits in New York City
4. Owners since 1 September 2026: WHP Global together with 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 founder

Born in New York City in 1963 and trained at Parsons School of Design, Marc Jacobs graduated in 1984. The youngest ever winner of the CFDA’s Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent, he won it while still a student. 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. The brand’s own timeline dates the “Original Grunge Collection” to 1993 and lists a redux in 2018. His Louis Vuitton appointment 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, was succeeded by Nicolas Ghesquière, and remains Founder and Creative Director of his own company.

The separate lines under one name

Four names matter in the history of the Marc Jacobs brand, and three are still in use. The main line uses the plain name and holds the runway collections and the priciest products. A diffusion line, Marc by Marc Jacobs, sat below it for fourteen years. Created to occupy that space, The Marc Jacobs sits above the price floor. Separate again is Heaven by Marc Jacobs, which has its own art direction and price band. 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 both the runway business and the root of every other label. 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 forms the largest family, launched in 2019 and reinvented each season. The Snapshot uses a camera-bag shape that the brand says was 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 line “No more Birkins, only Tote Bags,” is attributed by the company to Jacobs, 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. The line was discontinued in 2015, after the fall and winter collection, and folded back into the main line. That removed a distinct price tier from the business rather than simply renaming it. The label now turns up only on resale pieces from that period, the only place it 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. It is a lower-priced sub-label that descends in function from Marc by Marc Jacobs, built to reoccupy the tier the company had vacated. Most casual buyers meet this line rather than the others, since it holds 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. Capitalized on purpose, the definite article gives the written form 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

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. You see artist collaborations in the product names, among them 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

Who owns Marc Jacobs was a question with one answer for nearly thirty years, until 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. 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 structure divides 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. Roughly $925 million is the figure Business of Fashion and WWD put on the transaction, but LVMH disclosed no value, so it 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.

How often it shows

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. Because the collections are seasonless and named for the year, they are called runway collections rather than spring or fall lines. The last few 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. 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 remains unconfirmed, and on the established pattern the next outing falls in February 2027.

The range 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. 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 goes back 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. Physical 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.