Before Marc Jacobs was a major
fashion brand, he was a precocious fashion wunderkind, winning a pair of Golden Thimble awards and named Design Student of the Year in 1984 at the Parsons School of Design in New York. It was at Parsons that Jacobs created his first line, a collection of oversize
sweaters knit by his grandmother. These were soon being sold in a New York boutique called Charivari, where Jacobs had worked as a teenager. The sweaters did well, but more importantly, they caught the eye of Robert Duffy, who hired Jacobs to help him design sportswear at Reuben Thomas. Jacobs only lasted a year or so at Thomas, but by 1987, he had won the prestigious Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent.
That honor led to an appointment in 1989 at Perry Ellis itself, where Jacobs struggled until 1993. Jacobs did his best at Perry Ellis, but the stodgy brand was not a good fit for his interest in street style, which he and Duffy were cultivating as a part of the Marc Jacobs label, whose fortunes were uneven until 1997, when he was named the artistic director of an even stodgier brand,
Louis Vuitton.
It was at Louis Vuitton that Jacobs began to take a serious interest in
handbags, in no small part because they were such an important part of Vuitton’s bottom line. Since Jacobs had been hired to give Vuitton a new coat of paint, he decided to do exactly that by collaborating with contemporary artists like Stephen Sprouse, Takashi Murakami, on Richard Prince on Louis Vuitton fashions and
accessories. Sprouse took Jacobs' marching orders literally by spray-painting the words "Louis Vuitton Paris" over the venerable LV monogram on the company’s traditional handbags. For his part, Murakami played with the colors of the repeated monogram decorating Vuitton handbags, sometimes replacing the logo pattern with flowers or cherries.
While at Louis Vuitton, Jacobs launched Marc by Marc Jacobs in 2001, which allowed the designer to dabble in a lower-priced line, including...
Before Marc Jacobs was a major
fashion brand, he was a precocious fashion wunderkind, winning a pair of Golden Thimble awards and named Design Student of the Year in 1984 at the Parsons School of Design in New York. It was at Parsons that Jacobs created his first line, a collection of oversize
sweaters knit by his grandmother. These were soon being sold in a New York boutique called Charivari, where Jacobs had worked as a teenager. The sweaters did well, but more importantly, they caught the eye of Robert Duffy, who hired Jacobs to help him design sportswear at Reuben Thomas. Jacobs only lasted a year or so at Thomas, but by 1987, he had won the prestigious Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent.
That honor led to an appointment in 1989 at Perry Ellis itself, where Jacobs struggled until 1993. Jacobs did his best at Perry Ellis, but the stodgy brand was not a good fit for his interest in street style, which he and Duffy were cultivating as a part of the Marc Jacobs label, whose fortunes were uneven until 1997, when he was named the artistic director of an even stodgier brand,
Louis Vuitton.
It was at Louis Vuitton that Jacobs began to take a serious interest in
handbags, in no small part because they were such an important part of Vuitton’s bottom line. Since Jacobs had been hired to give Vuitton a new coat of paint, he decided to do exactly that by collaborating with contemporary artists like Stephen Sprouse, Takashi Murakami, on Richard Prince on Louis Vuitton fashions and
accessories. Sprouse took Jacobs' marching orders literally by spray-painting the words "Louis Vuitton Paris" over the venerable LV monogram on the company’s traditional handbags. For his part, Murakami played with the colors of the repeated monogram decorating Vuitton handbags, sometimes replacing the logo pattern with flowers or cherries.
While at Louis Vuitton, Jacobs launched Marc by Marc Jacobs in 2001, which allowed the designer to dabble in a lower-priced line, including casual handbags. This led to a collection of soft satchel-style leather "hobo" handbags in practically every color of the rainbow, as well as quilted purses that recalled the quilted 2.55 bags of
Chanel. The most famous of these Jacobs purses was the Stam, named for Canadian fashion model Jessica Stam. Her namesake bag, which was quilted and sported a chain strap just like the 2.55, was secured with a simple kiss lock. The Stam quickly became an “It” bag, almost from the moment it was released in 2005, and it sold briskly until it was discontinued in 2013, the same year Jacobs stepped down from Louis Vuitton (Marc by Marc Jacobs would be subsumed by the overall Marc Jacobs brand in 2016).
Another famous Jacobs bag of the first decade of the 21st century was the “Give ‘Em Hell Al!” canvas tote that was produced in 2006, to call attention to former vice-president Al Gore’s acclaimed documentary on climate change called “An Inconvenient Truth.”
In recent years, handbags have become an even more important part of the Marc Jacobs brand. For example, its popular “Trouble” bags had oversize push buttons for their closures, but in 2016, that piece of hardware was replaced by a double-J bit—because one of the “J”s is inverted, the logo resembles an oval more than a pair of initials. Bags now have names like “Gotham” (a leather satchel), and “Snapshot,” which is a camera bag for an age when hardly anyone carries a
camera anymore, although its diminutive size is perfect for camera-equipped smartphones.
