Business, Design & Style

Marc's Journey

Marc Jacobs

Lesson time 13:50 min

Learn about Marc's transformation from fashion student to world-renowned designer.

Students give MasterClass an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars

Topics include: Meeting Perry Ellis • First Manufactured Pieces • Making Mistakes • The Future

Preview

My love for fashion began with shopping for back-to-school clothes. That's really where it began. And it was really with my grandmother. My grandmother used to take us shopping for back-to-school clothes, or school clothes. And probably mostly at Bloomingdale's in New York, if I remember correctly. But I really enjoyed it, unlike maybe other kids that age. Unlike other kids that age, I really enjoyed being in a department store or going shopping for school clothes. And in New York they used to have all these T-shirt shops where you could customize your own T-shirts, or you could pick sort of designs for T-shirts and have different things printed on them and stuff like that. And I used to always really like that. Then I started customizing clothes. And that probably was a habit that came to be because of my babysitter, where I'd see them in jean jackets with different patches, and embroideries, and things like that. And I was always into arts and crafts. So I think between my love for school clothes, or choosing my school clothes, and the idea of customizing clothes, I would start embellishing jean jackets. And I remember using acrylic paints to paint on my jeans, and sort of markers to color on my sneakers and stuff like that. So I was very attracted and visually stimulated by fashion. And from a very young age I would really enjoy looking at clothes and customizing. That's where my love for fashion began. I was really young. And I was like 12 years old or 13 where I was like, oh, I want to be a fashion designer. I don't even know if I knew what a fashion designer was, but I mean I wanted to do fashion. I wanted some job within fashion. I guess that would be the best way to say it. And then I kind of learned a little bit more by going-- I applied to the High School of Art and Design, and I went there and I majored in fashion. And I realized that part of fashion that I was interested in was the design aspect of fashion. I did not want to photograph fashion. I did not want to illustrate fashion. I wanted to actually create clothes, and that was the part that interested me the most. I was interested in other designers, so I would look at their work and I would look at it through any means that I possibly could. So I would look at fashion magazines. I remember with Perry Ellis, whose work I love, I would go to Bloomingdale's and I would go to Saks. I would go to the department stores that sold his clothes so that I could see them hanging in the stores. At that time they-- I don't know if this still exists, but designers used to do trunk shows. I'm not recommending to any student that they cut school to go to trunk shows or fashion shows, but I did a little bit of that when I was younger, too. I would skip out of school to go see the Perry Ellis trunk show at Saks Fifth Avenue. And I did sneak into a couple of fashion...

About the Instructor

Marc Jacobs’s infamous grunge collection got him fired. It also won him the CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year Award. In his first online fashion design class, the 11-time CFDA Award winner teaches his hands-on process for creating clothes that push boundaries and set trends. Learn Marc’s construction techniques, how he creates unique shapes and silhouettes, and how you can develop your own ideas from the first sketch to the final piece.

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Marc Jacobs

In 18 lessons, iconic designer Marc Jacobs teaches you his process for creating innovative, award-winning fashion.

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