The Glossy 50 honors the year’s biggest changemakers across fashion and beauty. More from the series →
If you’ve been on TikTok this year, chances are you’ve seen your favorite creator in a Marc Jacobs video. TikToks posted to the brand’s account, which is approaching 365,000 followers, often get millions of views and hundreds of thousands of likes. With content collaborations with model-turned-home-cook Nara Smith, streamer Kai Cenat and Gen-Z supermodel Alex Consani, Marc Jacobs has seemingly mastered the art of keeping a finger on the cultural zeitgeist.
Marc Jacobs himself has been instrumental in driving the brand’s social awakening, but he hasn’t operated alone. CMO Kristin Patrick, who joined the team in May, has also played a significant role. Just six months into her role, she has led three of the brand’s biggest campaigns to date, she told Glossy. Patrick previously held marketing roles at Pepsi and Claire’s with a similar goal in mind: finding new ways to attract the Gen-Z consumer.
In October, Patrick helped launch the Marc Jacobs Essentials campaign, which highlights four of the brand’s iconic handbags including the Tote Bag, the Snapshot and the Shoulder Bag. The content, including a two-minute short film posted to the brand’s social channels, features powerhouse supermodels, including Joan Smalls and Adriana Lima, and plays on the brand’s connection to New York City, which has been its home since its launch in 2004. The campaign will run through 2025, Patrick said.
Also in October, Marc Jacobs kicked off a celebration of both its 40th anniversary and the 85th anniversary of “The Wizard of Oz,” inspired by Jacobs’s personal passion for the film. The collection features cinematic imagery and novel prints on limited-edition iterations of the brand’s signature silhouettes, like its Tote Bag. Soon after, Patrick kicked off her first holiday campaign for the brand, which focuses on the idea of holiday cheer. Featuring computer-generated imagery of the bestselling Tote Bags, the campaign marks the first time Marc Jacobs has experimented with computer-generated imagery.
Patrick said finding ways to connect the 40-year-old brand with new consumers has been a welcome challenge.
“We’re at an inflection point with enormous opportunity ahead. We’re moving from an accessories-dominant fashion brand to a dynamic lifestyle brand,” Patrick said. “You’ll start to see an evolution in the way we’re talking to our consumers. After [internal consumer] research, we now better understand who’s buying our product and what they want from us, and we’ll continue that dialog.”
Patrick is also working to bridge the gap between Marc Jacobs’s online community and its IRL consumers. “I’m excited to bring multi-dimensional campaigns to life in new ways, both on and off social media,” she said. “We want to encourage fans of the brand to keep an eye out for unexpected partnerships, and we’ll continue to push the boundaries in new and existing business categories.”
As the brand ushers in a new phase of growth, its sales are also seeing a nice boost. Reportedly, the company, currently owned by LVMH, recorded about $642 million in sales in 2023. However, LVMH does not break down revenue by label.
