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Then suddenly Jacobs shrieks, "Ahhhh!"
Emmanuelle Alt, editor of Paris Vogue, is striding into the Mercer lobby.
Jacobs jumps up for a hug. "a va?" Alt asks as they exchange a peck on each check. "I didn't even need to see your face. I would recognize you from behind." Jacobs plants both hands on his bottom and in a mock-whining voice says, "No, it's really flappy right now." They chat in French about their flights back to Paris (in three weeks Jacobs will showcase his fall-winter Louis Vuitton collection at Paris Fashion Week) before saying goodbye.
"There are very few people whose opinion about fashion matters to me," he says after Alt leaves. "Grace Coddington is a great editor and a great friend, and whether or not she likes something I do, I believe she'll give me an honest opinion. And though I'm very friendly with Emmanuelle, for example, I have very few close friends. There's Sofia and Kim Gordon."
That would be the Sonic Youth co-founder and director Sofia Coppola, who posed topless in a pool for a 2002 Marc Jacobs perfume ad and accepted her 2004 screenwriting Oscar in one of his dresses. "What he does always has an elegance with a sense of fun," she says. "He's aware that people look to what he does, but he doesn't let that inhibit his creativity."
Jacobs is a magnet, but it can be hard to pinpoint the nature of the attraction. No signature adjectives apply to him, as with the minimalist Miuccia Prada, the ethereal Jenny Packham or the sexed-up Tom Ford. Nor is Jacobs looking to define himself. "I'm not somebody who tries to figure out why so much," he says. "One thing that is exciting about fashion is the surprise element. People don't know what they want. They just know when they see it."
He didn't know much about Louis Vuitton--the man or the brand--before becoming artistic director. He doesn't to this day. "That doesn't matter to me," he says. "I don't even think the luggage is the most modern, practical form of travel, but what it is is the most beautifully made luggage and the most recognized monogram in the world. That's what matters to people."
In 2001 he began asking artists such as Stephen Sprouse, Richard Prince and Takashi Murakami to collaborate on illustrated, neon-colored versions of the brown-and-gold bags. "People saw the monogram as an iconic thing," Jacobs says. "So I invited them to deface the monogram, like how Duchamp had defaced the Mona Lisa. By making it louder, we were being rebellious but also making it younger and more appealing to a contemporary customer."
Jacobs' lengthy tenure at Louis Vuitton is no small feat, especially at a time when Europe's fashion houses are playing musical chairs. Jil Sander creative director Raf Simons stepped down from his position two days before presenting his fall-winter collection at Milan Fashion Week; Sander will return to head up design. Days later, Yves Saint Laurent announced that creative director Stefano Pilati was leaving; Hedi Slimane, previously of Dior Homme, is expected to replace him. Despite rumors last fall that he was angling for the creative-director position at Dior--which has been vacant since John Galliano was fired for anti-Semitic remarks a year ago--Jacobs says he doesn't contemplate how long he'll stay at Vuitton: "I don't have a master plan."