Marc jacobs official. Marc Jacobs - biography and personal life. Creating your own brand. Work at Perry Ellis

Celebrity biographies

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03.05.15 14:25

A few years ago, he designed T-shirts with symbols advocating for the right of people to same-sex marriage. After all, the personal life of Marc Jacobs is no secret to anyone - he does not hide his homosexual inclinations.

Biography of Marc Jacobs

Not a very happy childhood

Marc Jacobs, born April 9, 1963 in New York, had a not-so-happy childhood. Maybe there one should look for the origins of his indifference to the fair sex? After all, the mother was not attentive to her three children (Mark has a sister and brother), got married three times and, according to the couturier himself, was mentally abnormal. Mark's father died when the boy was seven. He did not like the situation in his mother's house, so Jacobs moved to the Upper West Side to live with his paternal grandmother. He simply idolized this woman! Mark started working early - as a teenager, he took the place of a storekeeper in one of the New York boutiques.

Talented student

At the age of 18, a graduate of the Higher School of Art and Design entered the Parsons School of Design. It was there that the first prizes and awards appeared in the biography of Marc Jacobs (“Designer Student of the Year” and “Golden Thimble”).

The talented student designed and produced a collection of knitted sweaters and participated in the design of the line for the Reuben Thomas brand. Then Mark met Robert Duffy, who became his mentor, friend and business partner.

own label

The label "Marc Jacobs" appeared when the fashion designer was 23 years old. He released his first collection and earned the title of New Talent in the fashion world. In 1992, Mark received the title of "Fashion Designer of the Year" (then he worked exclusively on women's clothing). He started designing men's wardrobe two years later. The already very famous couturier De La Renta accused the young colleague of plagiarizing his early work, but other designers and critics considered Jacobs' work to be vintage.

In 1997, Marc Jacobs was asked to become creative director of the French brand Louis Vuitton.

He gladly accepted and held the post until 2013, after which he wanted to devote himself entirely to his brand. After all, by that time three lines had successfully functioned: “Marc by Marc Jacobs” (mainly aimed at producing clothes for young people), “The Marc Jacobs Collection” (producing ready-to-wear products) and children’s, “Little Marc” . In the mid-2000s, the designer released perfumes that were distinguished by “democratic” prices and large volumes (300 ml bottles).

Non-standard approach

The biography of Marc Jacobs as a fashion designer is full of unexpected decisions and non-standard actions. So, he prefers to use non-standard models in the promotion of collections and brands. For example, Dakota Fanning once advertised his shoes for children, and the Russian group Tatu advertised youth clothes. Chloe Sevigny and Victoria Beckham collaborated with the master with pleasure. In 2014, Miley Cyrus turned out to be his model.

And in February of the same year, the fashion designer announced that Jessica Lange (now 66, but the actress is experiencing an unprecedented surge in popularity) will advertise Mark Jacobc Beauty cosmetics.

Naked couturier and bright "office"

Mark himself is not averse to acting as a model. For example, he posed naked for a commercial for the men's fragrance "Bang" (the bottle was located just below Jacobs's waist).

But not all consumers managed to see this picture in the original - for example, Middle Eastern censors left one bottle without a model on advertising stands, and in some countries the image of the American couturier was cut off.

Interestingly, along with children's clothing, Jacobs also produces stationery, which he sells in the Bookmarc department of his boutique in New York (these are bright pencil cases, letter sets, boxes of colored pencils).

Personal life of Marc Jacobs

Short marriage

Mark has no children, he married only once. In 2008, the fashion designer and Lorenzo Martone got engaged. In the spring of 2009, the couple got married.

But, alas, this marriage did not make the designer happy - they had enough for another year of relationship with Lorenzo, and in 2010 they divorced. Since then, Marc Jacobs' personal life has improved - he has a new friend, Harry Louis. True, this union seems to have exhausted itself.

His father died early when Mark was only seven years old. And the mother tried to arrange her personal life. She got married again and again, and every change in her personal life entailed a change of place of residence. Mark often felt lonely. Finally, his place of residence settled on an old mansion in Manhattan, where he began to live with his grandmother. Mark still remembers her as the closest "person who had the strongest influence on his life."

Grandmother liked to sit in front of the TV with knitting in her hands. And she taught her grandson, Mark, how to use knitting needles in such a way that, while still a schoolboy, Mark began to earn a living with his needlework. She instilled in him a taste for beautiful things. And at the age of 15, he was already inventing models that would then go into his future collections. Mark worked at the Charivari boutique, where he was assigned to knit pullovers. His work was in great demand. Behind him, even then, the glory of a talented designer was entrenched.

When Mark graduated from high school, there was no question of choosing a profession; he continued his education at the High School of Art and Design in New York. Then, upon graduation, he continued his education at.

Mark's abilities were already recognized with the Gold Thimble Award for emerging designers for his collection of hand-knitted sweaters. In the same 1984, Mark received the title of "Student of the Year". At the end of the School, he had many invented sketches for Reuben Thomas, in which he recreated the outfits from the movie "Amadeus".

At the end of the School, Mark met with Robert Duffy, who became his business partner. Duffy has been looking for a creative partner for a long time. And having met Jacobs, he immediately appreciated his abilities literally at first sight. For Mark, he became a close friend and replaced his father. And everyone immediately started talking about Jacobs Duffy Designs. Among fashionistas and fashionistas, a lot of fans have appeared.

In 1986, he released a trial collection under his own label. And the very next year he received the Perry Ellis Award in the New Talent nomination from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA).

The fame of Jacobs and Duffy grew. Soon they are invited to work at the Perry Ellis Fashion House. When the brand's founder dies, management decides to elect Mark as creative director and Robert as president. Then Mark was about 25 years old, and he had such a powerful fashion corporation in his hands. Apparently, such an unexpected and quick take-off was a big test for him. Despite his early accomplishments and talents, he often felt insecure. And it was precisely this uncertainty that he began to extinguish with shock doses of alcohol. However, he realized that creating illusions for himself with the help of alcohol is a road to nowhere. Mark managed to overcome himself and overcome the addiction.

He became more and more devoted to his work, and soon achieved success.

Marc Jacobs perfected the main design features of Perry Ellis. The collection included warm autumn colors: pumpkin, plum, ocher, beige, rust color. And in the fall of 1991, Marc Jacobs refreshed the palette - the collection included a grape-colored coat, a tangerine-colored coat, a chocolate cardigan, a toffee-colored sweater. The material was wool, cashmere, mohair, angora. These luxurious materials gave the clothes a special chic.

As creative director of Perry Ellis, Mark has drawn on the experience of other designers more than once, especially from the past decades. But at the same time, he always presented various themes and classical motifs in his own way, in a new way. He interpreted so exquisitely that his models could be compared with those of the classics.

Marc Jacobs is a legend in the fashion industry, he has an extraordinary talent for embodying individuality in his models. They combine romance and sophistication with confidence and complacency.

When Mark was thirty years old, he decides to work under his own label. In 1993, he introduced the grunge style he developed for the first time. For some, it was a shocking fashion. But that's then. And now many designers use this style. In his collection, silk dresses were presented in combination with heavy men's boots. The entire collection of Jacobs instantly sold out in New York stores. The public rejoiced, the press expressed delight, and the shareholders of Perry Ellis could not accept the extravagant designer. Marc Jacobs and Robert Duffy were fired.

Mark continued to work on his own style. And the following year, the Marc Jacobs collection “Shooting Stars” appeared: golden skirts, trousers with bright flashy tops, tweed jackets with hoods, T-shirts with sheepskin sleeves. Beloved by the American public and designers, sporty style in everyday clothes has become sporty chic for Mark. Simple things were made of luxurious fabrics.

Collection Marc Jacobs autumn-winter 2001

Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton

Mark doesn't stop there. He leaves for Italy to find new images there. At first he works for Iceberg, and his partner is negotiating with. Marc Jacobs is offered the role of creative director of the Louis Vuitton brand, which is part of the LVMH concern. The concern under the leadership of Bernard Arnault guarantees the support of the Marc Jacobs brand. Marc Jacobs brand store opens soon on Mercer Street.

Louis Vuitton - spring-summer 2001

Mark is preparing his first ready-to-wear collection for Louis Vuitton, which includes original knee-length and ankle-length skirts, double-breasted satin coats, striped trouser suits. The logo for Louis Vuitton is also designed by Mark. There were embossed patent leather bags, trench coats and raincoats covered in miniature Louis Vuitton logos. Decorating bags and fabrics with Louis Vuitton logos, Mark initiated a logomania boom.

And in 2000, Jacobs offers beaded embroidery pockets on light wool pants, lace prints in the style of the 60s. Restrained office clothes are transformed into seductive outfits.

In the fall 2001 menswear collection for Louis Vuitton, he came up with an image of a neo-romantic gentleman: black leather coats with red buttonholes, bold striped shirts under closed knitted jackets.

For the 2001-2002 womenswear collection, Jacobs chose materials such as tweed, cotton, silk and yarn, with mink trim and metal studs. Leather laced boots are the finishing touch.

The Jacobs collections have become a new image for the House of Louis Vuitton. Prior to the arrival of Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton's clothing line played a secondary role, and then, after the release of several collections, began to set the tone for the entire fashion world.

In parallel with his work for the House of Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs continued to work for his own collection. And in the fall of 2001, he presented an original cashmere coat with bright cuffs and large buttons, as well as a sequined mohair coat. The collection included jersey dresses.

He worked a lot, up to 16 hours a day, producing collection after collection. And in the same 2001, Mark launched a clothing line that included military-style coats with many studs and zippers, high-waisted jeans, pink and yellow striped jeans, layered skirts, graffiti sweatshirts. He, in collaboration with artists and designers, painted fabrics in which the ideas of the past came into contact with the ideas of the present.

About four years ago, Marc Jacobs' health deteriorated greatly. Turning to a nutritionist, he decided to follow all the instructions in order to regain his health. The list of instructions was quite long. In addition to medicines and a strict diet, the doctor ordered him to smile daily, rest and sweat as much as possible, i.e. do fitness. When Mark began to do everything, health began to return. He not only felt healthier, but friends and colleagues began to notice his better appearance.

Previously, he worked 16 hours a day, and stopped noticing how he looks, what he eats, what he drinks? And now, even at home, he strives to look better. All the changes have affected the work. Mark has become more confident, and this helps in his work.

Collection Marc by Marc Jacobs

When preparations for a new collection begin, Mark always consults with his team, asks everyone for ideas, ... he likes to find something wrong and inappropriate, sometimes something that he has never used before. And just like that, suddenly, as he says, quite by accident, or arbitrarily, interesting ideas come out, and then models.

Marc Jacobs loves the shows he puts on with his team. Shows that are more like theatrical performances, where everything is taken into account: music, scenery, lighting, and much, much more. And he also chooses all the female models with non-standard faces.

Marc Jacobs is an American both in essence and as a designer. He enjoys working for Louis Vuitton. However, "...it's not me...". Here he works in French. Mark is very meticulous in choosing clothes for himself, “... but I could hardly make a business out of what I want to wear. The brand would be out of the market."

Louis Vuitton spring-summer 2014 collection

Marc Jacobs is an amazingly talented designer who knows exactly what people will wear today or tomorrow, he can easily predict the fashion trends of future seasons, he can see the ideas of the past, which he refracts through the prism of modernity.

“…I want the clothes I make to be worn. I want to believe that these things will have a full life, otherwise I would not show them on the catwalk.

Marc Jacobs Awards

Perry Ellis Golden Thimble Award, 1984
Chester Weinberg Gold Thimble Award, 1984
Parsons School of Design Student of the Year 1984
Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent, 1987
Best Womenswear Designer, 1992
Best Womenswear Designer by CFDA 2010
Awarded Chevalier of the French Order of Arts and Letters, 2010

Marc Jacobs Spring-Summer 2014 Collection

Marc Jacobs is an American fashion and accessories designer whose work is familiar all over the world. The founder of his own brand is not afraid of bold experiments. The designer is compared to King Midas: no matter what wardrobe detail Mark's fantasy gives birth to, every fashionista immediately wants to get it.

Childhood and youth

The famous couturier, the son of a large Jewish family, was born on April 9, 1963 in New York. Parents worked as agents at the theater. When the boy was seven years old, his father died, and a carefree happy childhood ended. Mom hit in search of a new husband, changing spouses like gloves, in a short time she managed to go down the aisle three times.

Mark, along with his brother and sister, were out of work. Already in adulthood, the fashion designer said in an interview that, in addition to an unhealthy desire to find personal happiness, the parent suffered from a mental disorder.

Having suffered in his parents' house, the teenager went to live with his paternal grandmother, who occupied a luxurious apartment in the Majestic skyscraper. It was she who laid the foundation for the creative biography of Marc Jacobs: the grandmother instilled in the boy a taste for chic, but practical things, taught him to hold knitting needles in his hands, creating exclusive knitted clothes.

Mark graduated from a mathematical school, and at the age of 15 he joined the ranks of the students of the Higher School of Arts and Design. In order to get to know fashion trends better, the young man worked at the same time in the Charivari avant-garde clothing boutique. Here a fateful meeting took place - Jacobs began to communicate with Perry Ellis, a designer who was legendary. At that moment, Mark finally realized that he would connect his life with fashion, he would create beautiful clothes with his own hands.

Fashion

Mark started showing great promise in the fashion industry as a student. In 1984, the young man won the Golden Thimble award from Chester Weinberg and Ellis, and was soon named the best student designer of the year. At the same time, Jacobs decided to try his hand at creating his own collection, presenting hand-knitted sweaters to fashionistas. The budding fashion designer's Pen Test was released under The Sketchbook label and received critical acclaim.

Career quickly picked up speed. After the death of idol and mentor Perry Ellis, the young couturier was invited to lead the design team at Perry Ellis, and here he really turned around, having managed to loudly declare himself to the world. The grunge clothing collection created for this brand made Mark famous.

Jacobs was cramped within the Perry Ellis house, the young man had enough energy for other projects. The designer joined forces with fashion designer Robert Duffy - the couple showed the world a new clothing company, Jacobs Duffy Designs Inc..

The collection under his own name “Marc Jacobs label”, which in the late 80s brought incredible success to the man, also helped him triumphantly ascend the fashionable Olympus. Mark was even awarded the Council of American Fashion Designers Award - he became the youngest designer to receive this award. In 1989, Jacobs began dressing ladies with Duffy, taking senior positions at Tristan Russo, a company that specialized in creating women's collections.

And five years later, Mark pleased men with fashionable novelties, giving them a separate line of clothing. However, for the first time the designer was accused of plagiarism - in this vintage collection, Oscar de la Renta saw an imitation of his own early work. However, fashion critics smashed the design bison's suspicions to the nines, pointing out that Jacobs does not copy, but successfully interprets the details.

An acquaintance with the owner of LVMH, Bernard Arnault, who offered Mark the chair of the director and chief designer of the French company Louis Vuitton, helped to climb a step higher in his career. Couturier happily agreed, headlong into creativity.

When creating collections of bags, the master collaborated with artists Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince and even a rapper. The profits of the fashion house "Louis Vuitton" grew rapidly, in the first year of Jacobs's work increased three times. Mark's significant achievement as a bag designer was the "Marc Jacobs Stam bag", designed specifically for the Canadian fashion model and fashion model Jessica Stam.

During the years of cooperation with Louis Vuitton, the fashion designer continued to pore over new collections of clothes and not only. By 2006, he already owned 60 boutiques, released several fragrances, glasses, shoes and one watch line under his brand. The designer's ideas were sometimes action-packed. So, twice, Mark created a series of T-shirts, which flaunted naked media personalities - as a sign of support for the fight against melanoma.

The talented couturier was gladly treated with orders by film and television stars. Clients include Christy Turlington, and others. Jacobs designed the costumes for the Parisian ballet Amoveo.

Not without scandals on the creative path of Marc Jacobs. In 2008, the fashion designer had to be responsible for a scarf, the design of which was spied on in the work of the Swede, catwalk star of the 50s, Gost Olofsson. Plagiarism was discovered by accident - one American reporter, leafing through old magazines, saw that Jacobs' creation was an exact copy of the Swedish fashion designer's scarf. The American couturier had to pay compensation to Olofsson's relatives.

Then another scandal followed: journalists learned that instead of artificial fur decorating the clothes of a fashion designer, they use the hair of a Chinese raccoon dog. In 2013, Mark left Louis Vuitton, directing all his efforts and opportunities to develop his brands.

Personal life

The designer does not hide his personal life, on the contrary, he advertises in every possible way. Mark is a homosexual, fiercely fighting for the rights of members of sexual minorities. Including with the help of crafts: in 2009, a man created a line of T-shirts in honor of the legalization of same-sex marriage in America. In the same spring, the fashion designer openly married a lover named Lorenzo Marton.

However, the union turned out to be fragile - a year later it broke up. Then Jacobs was seen in connection with a certain Harry Louis, but the relationship did not reach the altar.

Jacobs has a passion for alcohol and cocaine. In the early 2000s, I even had to go to a clinic for rehabilitation - Mark fainted at work, quarreled with his subordinates.

Fashion designer's clothing style preferences have changed over the years. At first, Marc Jacobs looked little like a fashion designer, wearing wide trousers and voluminous shirts in an attempt to hide excess weight. But in 2006 he hit the sport, the figure turned into an athletic one, a scattering of tattoos appeared on his body, and an earring with a diamond in his ear. Mark experiments with fashion, often wearing skirts and dresses to go out.

Marc Jacobs now

Now the company "Marc Jacobs" includes three areas - the youth brand "Marc by Marc Jacobs", the children's "Little Marc" and the ready-to-wear line "The Marc Jacobs Collection". The brand has an official website where you can order any fashionable novelties. The Marc Jacobs fashion and perfume house also has a network of shops with fragrances, accessories and beauty services.

Mark remains an extremely prolific designer, although recently critics have accused the couturier of a return to early creativity and of excessive theatricality of collections, clothes from which can hardly be worn in everyday life.

At the beginning of 2018, the press started talking about the instability of the American designer's business, and his stores began to close everywhere. However, Jacobs does not stop participating in fashion shows. The autumn-winter collection is replete with bows, leather, large and small details, it is distinguished by a wide line of shoulders and volumes. For spring-summer, the artist offered bright boas, turbans, light African hoodies and dresses in the style of Hollywood retro chic.

Condition assessment

Until 2014, Marc Jacobs' retail sales brought the owner $650 million. But the economic crisis has made adjustments, and today revenues have decreased to $300 million.