LVMH announced today that, after sixteen years at the helm at Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs will be stepping down from his post in order to focus on his namesake brand, which WWD reports he’s taking public. The news broke following Jacobs’ Spring ’14 show for Vuitton, and while rumors that Nicolas Ghesquière will replace Jacobs have been circulating, LVMH has yet to name a successor.
Before Jacobs was appointed as the brand’s first creative director in 1997, the house was all about its iconic, monogrammed handbags and travel trunks. There was no Louis Vuitton ready-to-wear—no epic Paris fashion week sets, no Kate Moss cameos, no clothes. Jacobs’ debut Fall 1998 collection, which he showed sans music in Paris, was sheer minimalism, and a far cry from the opulent affairs he’s turned out in recent years. However, now, almost two decades later, Jacobs has transformed Vuitton from an old-world purveyor of superluxury travel goods to an international house at the forefront of fashion. Who could forget his artist collaborations, which he began with Stephen Sprouse’s graffitied handbags in Spring 2001? Or that time in 2010 when he dared to celebrate supermodels’ cleavage? And what would we talk about post-PFW if it weren’t for his outrageous runways (Fall 2012′s LV locomotive, anyone?)? Just in case your memory’s a little hazy, we’ve revisited Jacobs’ most unforgettable moments—sartorial and otherwise—from his time at Louis Vuitton. Click through our slideshow to see all his greatest hits.
