The essentials

Marc Jacobs is an American fashion house with its base in New York, owned since September 2026 by a partnership of WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group. Ready-to-wear, bags, leather goods, shoes, jewelry, eyewear and fragrance make up the range, with handbags as its core. It presents roughly once a www.thetotebag.org year, in early February, outside the official New York Fashion Week calendar. Since the first SoHo store opened in 1997, the flagship has come to be at 127–129 Prince Street in Manhattan. The ground this marc jacobs overview covers is 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, as the brand’s own timeline has it
3. Headquarters: the house is run out of New York City
4. Owners since 1 September 2026: the pairing of WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group
5. Chief Executive: Eric Marechalle, who has held the post since 2017
6. Labels in use: Marc Jacobs, The Marc Jacobs, Heaven by Marc Jacobs

The designer in brief

Marc Jacobs was born in New York City in 1963 and studied at Parsons School of Design, graduating in 1984. Still a student, he became the youngest ever winner of the CFDA’s Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent. He arrived at Perry Ellis in 1988 and in November 1992 showed the grunge-inflected spring 1993 collection that made his name and cost him the job. According to his own timeline the “Original Grunge Collection” falls in 1993 and a redux is listed 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. His last Louis Vuitton collection was shown in October 2013, he was succeeded by Nicolas Ghesquière, and he remains Founder and Creative Director of his own company.

The labels under a single name

Four names matter in the history of the Marc Jacobs brand, and three are still in use. Runway collections and the priciest products live on the main line, which carries the plain name. Fourteen years of a diffusion line, Marc by Marc Jacobs, sat below it. Created to occupy that space, The Marc Jacobs sits above the price floor. Separate from them is 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. The Tote Bag, The Snapshot and The Scene are the bag categories, 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 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 company attributes to Jacobs the line “No more Birkins, only Tote Bags,” framing it as a rejection of exclusivity rather than a pursuit of it.

Marc by Marc Jacobs

The diffusion line, Marc by Marc Jacobs, launched in 2001 as a line aimed at a younger, cheaper end of the market. For fourteen years it ran, and it 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. Rather than a simple renaming, it took a distinct price tier out of the business. The label now turns up only on resale pieces from that period, the only place it 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. Most of the price confusion around the label traces back to mixing it up with the main line.

Heaven by Marc Jacobs

Started 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”. 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. Roughly 153 products made up the range, and it runs standalone stores in Los Angeles, New York and London. Collaborations with artists turn up in product names, including 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 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. 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. Marc Jacobs stays on 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. The single show lands in early February, 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. 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. Coverage in the trade press of the 2026 show, titled “Memory. Loss.”, 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.

What is on sale 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. 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. Past the bags come 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. Discount weighs heavily in physical retail: 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.