Marc Jacobs: 'I Don't Think That The Creative Is to Blame'

The Business of Fashion Podcast

The episode features an interview with designer Marc Jacobs following his departure from LVMH and the acquisition of his brand by WHP and G3. Jacobs reflects on his 29-year tenure, critiques the

Key takeaways

• Marc Jacobs departed LVMH after 29 years, citing stagnation and a lack of investment in store expansion or growth beyond maintenance.
• Jacobs criticizes non-creative executives for believing that appointing new designers will solve the industry's structural retail slump.

Main topics

• Marc Jacobs' transition from LVMH to WHP/G3 ownership
• Critique of the fashion industry's structural slump and designer turnover

Notable quotes

"I think my vantage point would mean, I mean, to me, is the vantage point of a designer, of a creative person. And what I see is a bunch of non-creative people thinking that this all hangs on a creative person."

Conclusion

The episode underscores the tension between creative vision and corpor

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:04) Hi, this is Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Business of Fashion. Welcome to the BOF podcast. It's Friday, October 2nd. Earlier today, we introduced the BOF 500 class of 2026. 100 new members being added to our ever-growing index of people shaping the global fashion industry. You can explore the new class at businessoffashion.com. Earlier this week, we revealed this year's BOF 500 cover stories featuring Mewcha Prada, Marc Jacobs, Givenchy's Sarah Burton, and Issey Miyake's Satoshi Kondo, examining the ineffable creative quotient that turns clothes into things of desire. But of course, creativity is just one part of the fashion equation. It is not something managers can simply turn on like a light switch. Designers need sufficient time and resources and teams that know how to translate their visions into commercial products, not to mention the best factories, strong retail networks, and so on to make a fashion business tick. Recently, Mark Jacobs has been grappling with some big changes at his namesake brand, opening a new chapter under new owners WHP and G3, which closed a deal to acquire the Mark Jacobs business from LVMH in September. As the deal was coming together over the summer, Mark met with BOF contributor Eric Wilson to discuss life after LVMH and whether he can work with his new business partners without losing his soul. You can read the in-depth story on BOF on October 7th. In the meantime, I wanted to share a conversation I had with Mark after our cover shoot. Amongst other things, I asked him for his views on all the new designer appointments in our industry as a potential solution to the ongoing fashion slump. Speaker 3 (2:02) What I see is a bunch of non-creative people thinking that this all hangs on a creative person. And I think it's just a big mistake. I mean, the world is in a place, regardless, you can put a different logo over a designer's head or you can change the store that his clothes are available in. There's an exhaustion, I think, from all of this stuff. And I don't know that the world even knows who's where at any given point. Speaker 1 (2:35) Here's Marc Jacobs on the BOF Podcast. Speaker 1 (2:42) Welcome. Thank you. Speaker 2 (2:44) I love the colors. Thank you. They look amazing. And we're on a pink carpet too. We didn't even plan that. I know. It just worked out. I, you know, this is a very interesting time for you as a designer, for you as a founder. Your most recent show was called Gratitude and the show notes named all these people who shaped you. Why was this a moment for you to look back at, you know, what was it, what were you thinking or feeling? I Speaker 3 (3:18) think at every show there's an automatic, like I can't avoid it even if I try, sort of feeling of like the past and what came before and where I'm at. It's always just very emotional. And I think that's been consistent for all the years that I've been doing this is like thinking about, I mean, before the show is thinking about not only the process and what we've done and how it's come together, but like all the feelings that, you know, occurred during that process. Speaker 3 (3:51) So as you can imagine, one of the things I was thinking about was like, Where will we be going in our new iteration of our... company and my work life. Speaker 2 (4:08) Yeah. You wrote also about recognizing abundance in life's most uncertain moments. Is that how you're feeling now, right now? But is this a transition and change? I think this is not just about, that was not solely Speaker 3 (4:25) about work. That was, it's like sometimes, I mean, I believe, get these like messages and when certain ideas were concepts, thoughts, repeat, you know, you receive