The short facts

An American fashion house based in New York, 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 first SoHo store in jacobsbag.net 1997, the flagship has come to be 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. Readers arriving from the singular search phrase “marc jacob overview” 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, per the brand’s own timeline
3. Main office: New York City
4. Owners since 1 September 2026: the partnership of WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group
5. Chief Executive: Eric Marechalle, running the company since 2017
6. Live labels: Marc Jacobs, The Marc Jacobs, Heaven by Marc Jacobs

The name on the label

Marc Jacobs was born in New York City in 1963 and trained at Parsons School of Design, graduating in 1984. While a student he became the youngest ever winner of the CFDA’s Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent. He was at Perry Ellis from 1988 and in November 1992 he showed the grunge-inflected spring 1993 collection that made his name and cost him the job. By his own timeline the “Original Grunge Collection” sits in 1993 and a redux is listed 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. Nicolas Ghesquière took over after he showed his last Louis Vuitton collection in October 2013, and he 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. Runway collections and the priciest products live on the main line, which carries the plain name. For fourteen years a diffusion line, Marc by Marc Jacobs, sat below it. Above the price floor is The Marc Jacobs, created to occupy that space. Separate from them is 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 runway business is the main line, and every other label grew out of it. Bag categories cover 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. The Snapshot uses a camera-bag shape that the brand says was conceived in a Parisian studio with its design team. A first showing on the 2022 runway introduced The Sack Bag, 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 started in 2001 as the diffusion line, aimed at a younger, cheaper end of the market. It lasted fourteen years and was how many 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. Rather than a simple renaming, it took a distinct price tier out of the business. Buyers still come across 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 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. 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. The definite article is intentional and capitalized, so 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 words 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”. Well under the main line on price, it had bags around $150 to $250 and tees from about $65 on the US site in September 2026. The catalogue stretched to roughly 153 products, and it runs standalone stores in Los Angeles, New York and London. Artist collaborations appear 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 leadership

Who owns Marc Jacobs was a question with one answer for nearly thirty years, until it changed in 2026. LVMH took a majority stake in 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. The business is split in two by the 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. 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 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 pattern of the shows

The four-season calendar that most houses of its size still use is one the company does not follow. The single show lands in early February, a few days before New York Fashion Week opens and deliberately off schedule. Collections that are seasonless and carry the year as their name 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. The 2026 show, titled “Memory. Loss.”, was read by trade coverage 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.

What the brand sells 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. 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. Beyond bags the range takes in ready-to-wear, shoes, wallets, jewelry, eyewear and children’s products, plus a permanent discount section called MARCDOWN. Fragrance goes back 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. The physical estate leans toward discount, since 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.