Marc Jacobs

Lore & Background

Marc Jacobs was born on April 9, 1963, to a secular Jewish family in New York City. When he was six, his father, an agent at the William Morris Agency, died. His mother, who remarried three times, was, according to Jacobs, "mentally ill" and "didn't really take care of her kids." As a teenager, he went to live with his paternal grandmother on the Upper West Side. He grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, and attended Teaneck High School. He studied at Parsons School of Design in New York, where in 1984 he won the Perry Ellis & Chester Weinberg Gold Thimble Award and Design Student of the Year. In 1987, he became the youngest designer ever to receive the Council of Fashion Designers of America's Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent. He also won the Women's Designer of the Year award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 1993.

Reader's Guide

Marc Jacobs is the head designer for his own fashion label, Marc Jacobs, and formerly Marc by Marc Jacobs, a diffusion line which was produced for approximately 15 years before it was discontinued after the 2015 fall/winter collection. At its peak, it had over 200 retail stores in 80 countries. He was the creative director of the French design house Louis Vuitton from 1997 to 2014. In spring 2001, Jacobs introduced his secondary line, Marc by Marc Jacobs.

In order to concentrate on the growth of his primary brand and cater to a more upscale clientele, Jacobs announced the closure of his subsidiary label Marc by Marc Jacobs in March 2015. In September 2020, Jacobs released Heaven, a polysexual line aimed at a younger audience while blurring gender boundaries. In 2024, Jacobs pledged that his products would not use or sell animal fur – and that they had not since 2018 – in response to a pressure campaign from animal activists. In 2026, LVMH sold the brand to New York-based brand management firm WHP Global.