Marc Jacobs (born April 9, 1963) is an American fashion designer. He 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. Jacobs was on Time magazine's "2010 Time 100" list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and was #14 on Out magazine's 2012 list of "50 Most Powerful Gay Men and Women in America". He married his longtime partner Charly Defrancesco on April 6, 2019.
Jacobs was born 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, in an apartment in the Majestic on Central Park West.
Jacobs grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, and attended Teaneck High School.
He developed a passion for fashion at a young age. He attended the High School of Art and Design and studied at Parsons School of Design in New York. While at Parsons 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.
At age 15, Jacobs worked as a stockboy at Charivari, a later defunct avant-garde clothing boutique in New York City. While studying at Parsons, he designed and sold his first line of hand-knit sweaters. He also designed his first collection for Reuben Thomas, Inc., under the Sketchbook label. With Robert Duffy, Jacobs's creative collaborator and business partner from the mid-1980s, he formed Jacobs Duffy Designs.
In 1986, backed by Onward Kashiyama USA, Inc., Jacobs designed his first collection bearing the Marc Jacobs label. In 1987, he was the youngest designer to have ever been awarded the fashion industry's highest tribute, the Council of Fashion Designers of America's Perry Ellis Award for "New Fashion Talent".
In 1988, Jacobs and Duffy joined the women's design unit of Perry Ellis as creative director/vice president and president, respectively, following the death of its namesake and founder. In addition, Jacobs oversaw the design of the various women's licensees. In 1992, the Council of Fashion Designers of America awarded Jacobs with The Women's Designer of the Year Award. In the same year, he designed a "grunge" collection for Perry Ellis, which was critically well-received but its commercial failure led to his dismissal. In February 1993, Perry Ellis decided to get out of the manufacturing business and shut down the designer collection.
In fall 1993, Jacobs Duffy Designs Inc. launched their own licensing and design company, Marc Jacobs International Company, L.P. In exchange for a percentage of future licensing income, Perry Ellis invested startup capital. In 1994, Jacobs produced his first full collection of menswear.
In 1995, Jacobs signed a global licensing agreement with Italian clothing company Gilmar to manufacture and distribute his main designer collection and a jeanswear line; as part of the agreement, he briefly took on a consulting role for Gilmar’s flagship luxury brand, Iceberg.
LVMH acquired a majority stake in the Marc Jacobs brand in 1997, the same year it named Jacobs Louis Vuitton's first creative director.
For the brand's advertising campaigns, Marc Jacobs has worked with renowned photographers including Juergen Teller (1998–2014), David Sims (since 2014), and Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott (since 2013).
In 2004, Marc Jacobs first entered into a licensing agreement with Safilo for the design, manufacturing and worldwide distribution of the brand's collections of sunglasses and optical frames. The brand first introduced a capsule line for children in 2005, later expanding the collection and the business by entering into licensing agreements with French partners Zannier (2006–2011) and Children Worldwide Fashion Group (from 2011).
In 2006, Jacobs started a new line of body-splash fragrances in ten-ounce bottles which were distributed by Coty; as part of the agreement, Jacobs released his popular Daisy collection of perfumes in 2007.
In 2009, Jacobs launched a shirt, sold at his stores, demanding the legalization of gay marriage. In May 2009, Jacobs co-hosted, with model Kate Moss, a "model and muse"-themed gala for the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute.
There were 285 Marc by Marc Jacobs and Marc Jacobs Collection retail locations worldwide as of the summer of 2013. The brand-new Marc Jacobs flagship shop opened in Shanghai in December 2013. There are now three sites for Heaven by Marc Jacobs in Los Angeles, New York City, and London.
For Mercedes-Benz Berlin Fashion Week in July 2011, Jacobs was the patron of the young talent award "Designer for Tomorrow by Peek & Cloppenburg".
By August 2011, it was reported that Jacobs might succeed John Galliano as creative director of Christian Dior. According to The Daily Telegraph, Jacobs "firmly laid to rest rumours that he was to move to Christian Dior" in January 2012, but rumors prevailed.
In 2013, Jacobs served as creative director for the Diet Coke brand's 30th anniversary; he spent a year giving the brand a "stylish and light-hearted" makeover.