The fashion designer Marc Jacobs is leaving Louis Vuitton...after 16 years to concentrate on his own eponymous line, according to Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief executive of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, which has a majority stake in Mr. Jacobs’s company.
“When we started together, Marc Jacobs was a tiny little business of around $20 million,” Mr. Arnault said in an interview on Wednesday. “Now the totality of sales is approaching $1 billion. It has been an enormous growth. “We left it to Marc and to Robert Duffy to decide when they wanted to concentrate on the brand,” he continued, referring to Mr. Jacobs’s business partner, Mr. Duffy. “Now we have come to an agreement and the object is to assist them with an introduction on the bourse,” or stock exchange. Mr. Arnault confirmed that the Marc Jacobs brand is working on an initial public offering. A jumpsuit with graffiti reading “I Love Paris” was part of the “goodbye” show. “It was an ode to Paris and to all the people I have been involved and work with. This city has been so great,” said Mr. Jacobs, who is expected to return to his native New York, where his own company is based.
