The short facts

Marc Jacobs, an American house based in New York, 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. The shows land roughly once a year, in early February, outside the official New York Fashion Week calendar. SoHo got the first store in 1997, and its flagship today stands at 127–129 Prince Street mark jacobs in Manhattan. This marc jacobs overview walks through the designer, the labels, the corporate structure and the range as they stood in late September 2026. Anyone 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, born in 1963 in New York City
2. Founding year: 1984, on the brand’s own timeline
3. Home base: 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 still running: Marc Jacobs, The Marc Jacobs, Heaven by Marc Jacobs

The designer behind it

Marc Jacobs was born in New York City in 1963 and studied at Parsons School of Design, graduating in 1984. As a student he became the youngest ever winner of the CFDA’s Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent. His Perry Ellis years started 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 dates the “Original Grunge Collection” to 1993 and lists a redux in 2018. In 1997 he took the job of first creative director at Louis Vuitton, where he created its first ready-to-wear and ran artist collaborations with Takashi Murakami, Stephen Sprouse, Richard Prince and Yayoi Kusama. He showed his last Louis Vuitton collection in October 2013, was succeeded by Nicolas Ghesquière, and remains Founder and Creative Director of his own company.

The label family

Four names are worth knowing 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. Fourteen years of a diffusion line, Marc by Marc Jacobs, sat below it. That space above the price floor is held by The Marc Jacobs, created to occupy it. Apart from them stands Heaven by Marc Jacobs, with 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. On the bag side the 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 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 lasted fourteen years and was how many shoppers first encountered the designer. The line ended in 2015, after the fall and winter collection, and was folded back into the main line. That stripped a distinct price tier from the business rather than simply renaming it. 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 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. The company still tags those products online as part of “THE collection,” the quickest way to identify one. Deliberate and capitalized, the definite article means it is written The Marc Jacobs. Mix it up with the main line and you get much of the price confusion around the label.

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. 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”. Prices sit 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 sat in the range, and standalone stores run 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. In January 2026 Nirui’s departure was reported with no successor named, so the label’s current creative leadership is not confirmed by the brand.

Ownership and leadership

The same answer served the question of who owns Marc Jacobs for nearly thirty years, before it changed in 2026. A majority stake went to LVMH 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. The arrangement splits 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. As Founder and Creative Director, Marc Jacobs continues, the closing announcement committing to continuity of the creative vision, collections and shows; Eric Marechalle has been chief executive since 2017.

The pattern of the shows

The company does not follow the four-season calendar most houses of its size still use. It shows once a year, in early February, 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. 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. It is not confirmed whether it also showed during September 2026 fashion week, and on the established pattern the next outing falls in February 2027.

What the brand sells now

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. 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. Ready-to-wear, shoes, wallets, jewelry, eyewear and children’s products sit beyond bags, 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 launched 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. On the ground the 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.