11 Fun Facts about Marc Jacobs!

Earlier this week, Marc Jacobs sat down with Patricia Mears, Deputy Director of the Museum at FIT.
With a packed house in tow, Mears probed, and Jacobs responded, delving into the basics and then far beyond.


Here are 11 highlights, we think more than a few might surprise you!


1. He’s only worn jeans three times in the past two years.

2. Speaking of pants, Marc’s famous kilt was the result of a bad mood in the office. He was feeling uninspired and told his assistant Casey to go to Barneys and buy him a pair of funny pants to cheer him up. Thus the Comme des Garçons kilt streak commenced.

3. While at Perry Ellis he hired his best friend from Parsons, Tracy Reese, and other Parsons grad Tom Ford to design for the label.

4. The greatest American designer according to Marc? Ralph Lauren.

5. But Yves Saint Laurent’s his design hero.

6. The company started at 113 Spring Street with one pattern maker and two sewers. All three are still with the brand today.

7. Juergen Teller shot Marc’s very first ad, of Kim Gordon on stage in a Marc Jacobs dress styled by Venetia Scott. So not much has changed there.

8. The common thread between Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton is collaboration. Marc stressed the talent and passion of designers he works with at both brands, and that the end result is not a manifestation of his own vision, but the vision of each member of the creative team.

9. The major difference is between MJ and LV is Marc’s personal conceptions of New York and Paris. Marc Jacobs is about New York, and Marc always needs to create a logical, credible collection for the brand. Paris, however, “is like a cartoon,” so Vuitton is always about flaunting what you have and suspending logic.

10. On the casting at his AW10 Louis Vuitton Show, Marc says it wasn’t about age, race, size, or shape. Instead Marc says, “iconic women are always Vuitton.” He worked with Katie Grand to pick out icons, and even lamented the lack of Daria and Isabeli saying, “we wanted them, but they were booked for other things.”

11. All the design on all Marc Jacobs products is in house. That means every t-shirt, headband, necklace, glove, tsotchke you find at the Stuff by Marc Jacobs store on Bleeker was designed by the Marc Jacobs creative team.

Voilà!