The essentials

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. The product range stretches to ready-to-wear, bags, leather goods, shoes, jewelry, eyewear and fragrance, with handbags as its core. It shows roughly once a year, in early February, outside the official New York Fashion Week calendar. Its first store opened in SoHo in 1997, and its flagship marc jacobs card holder today is 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”, be aware that 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, on the brand’s own timeline
3. Head 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, in post since 2017
6. Current labels: Marc Jacobs, The Marc Jacobs, Heaven by Marc Jacobs

The designer behind it

New York City in 1963 was where Marc Jacobs was born, and Parsons School of Design was where he trained, 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 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. His own timeline dates the “Original Grunge Collection” to 1993 and lists a redux in 2018. Louis Vuitton named him its first creative director in 1997, and there 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 a single name

Out of the four names that matter in the history of the Marc Jacobs brand, three are still in use. The plain name belongs to the main line, which holds the runway collections and the priciest products. Below the main line, for fourteen years, sat a diffusion line, Marc by Marc Jacobs. That space above the price floor is held by The Marc Jacobs, created to occupy it. Separate from them is Heaven by Marc Jacobs, with its own art direction and price band. Offshoots that are not fashion labels also run under the company: Bookmarc, Marc Jacobs Beauty and the Bark Jacobs dog line.

Marc Jacobs

The main line holds the runway business and started every other label. Its bag categories are The Tote Bag, The Snapshot and The Scene, plus groupings for crossbody, mini, shoulder bags and totes. Launched in 2019 and reinvented each season, The Tote Bag is the largest family. The Snapshot carries a camera-bag shape the brand says was conceived in a Parisian studio with its design team. The 2022 runway gave The Sack Bag its first outing, 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 came out in 2001 as the diffusion line, aimed at a younger, cheaper end of the market. It lasted fourteen years, and for many shoppers it was the first encounter with the designer. The line came to an end in 2015, after the fall and winter collection, and went back into the main line. Rather than a simple renaming, it took a distinct price tier out of the business. The one place the label now exists is on resale pieces from that period, where buyers still find it. 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 that descends in function from Marc by Marc Jacobs, built to reoccupy the tier the company had vacated. Home to the canvas totes and much of the everyday accessory range, it is in practice the line most casual buyers meet. The company still marks those products online as part of “THE collection,” the quickest way to identify one. Capitalized on purpose, the definite article gives the written form 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 launched in September 2020 under art director Ava Nirui, built around youth subculture and a gender-fluid, do-it-yourself sensibility. A gateway into what the company terms the omniverse of Marc Jacobs subversion is how it is described, and Jacobs is quoted 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. Product names carry artist collaborations, among them 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.

Who owns it and who runs it

The question of who owns Marc Jacobs kept 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. The announcement from LVMH of a definitive agreement to sell the brand to WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group came on 14 May 2026; the deal closed on 1 September 2026. Two parts make up 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. 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. 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.

How often it shows

The company does not work to the four-season calendar most houses of its size still use. Once a year, in early February, it shows, 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. 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. The trade press covering the 2026 show, titled “Memory. Loss.”, read it as a turn toward wearability. No confirmation exists on whether it also showed during September 2026 fashion week, and on the established pattern the next outing falls in February 2027.

The range today

Handbags sit at 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. 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 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. 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.