Takashi Murakami Louis Vuitton Cherry Monogram Sac Plat Tote Keepall Bags 2005

Revered by fashion lovers all over the world, vintage Marc Jacobs bags, jackets, dresses and shoes are sophisticated yet edgy. The award-winning American designer is known for a pop culture-inspired aesthetic that combines elements of grunge, preppiness and couture for pieces with broad appeal. Jacobs was instrumental in modernizing esteemed luxury house Louis Vuitton — he introduced the company’s inaugural ready-to-wear line for women and men and even reimagined its logo — while simultaneously growing his signature brand, which is today celebrated for its innovative reinterpretations of classic designs, bright colors and oversize prints. 

Marc Jacobs was born in New York City in 1963. His father died when he was seven years old and he went on to live with his grandmother who deeply encouraged his creative spirit. He attended the High School of Art and Design while working at cult Manhattan clothing boutique Charivari. In his role as a stockboy at the store, he met designer Perry Ellis, who suggested he attend the Parsons School of Design. He did so, and for his senior thesis project at the school, Jacobs designed sweaters emblazoned with Op art graphics that earned him considerable attention from the fashion industry.

In 1984, Jacobs and his friend and business partner Robert Duffy launched the Marc Jacobs label. A year later, Jacobs received the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent. In 1997, Jacobs was named the creative director of Louis Vuitton, a position he held until 2014. He pushed the brand forward through collaborations with major contemporary artists and designers like Stephen Sprouse, Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince and Yayoi Kusama. This cooperative model has become a mainstay of the brand.

While helping the venerable luxury house earn accolades — and scores of new fans — for partnerships that melded fashion with art, Jacobs was also working on his namesake projects. He continued to design for his flagship line and debuted Marc by Marc Jacobs in 2001. Although the Marc by Marc Jacobs diffusion label closed in 2015, Jacobs has gone on to introduce beauty, fragrance and children’s lines. 

In 2020, Jacobs launched Heaven. A collaboration with Australian-born Ava Nirui — the art director at Jacobs’s flagship brand — the line comprises gender-neutral skirts, chokers and other garments and accessories that are aimed at a younger audience and draw on our era’s renewed appreciation for 1990s fashion.

The Council of Fashion Designers of America named Jacobs the Accessories Designer of the Year four times. The organization named him the Menswear Designer of the Year in 2002 — he was also honored with a plaque on the Fashion Walk of Fame in Midtown Manhattan that year — and the Womenswear Designer of the Year in 2016.

On 1stDibs, find vintage Marc Jacobs purses, tote bags and other clothing and accessories on 1stDibs.

Japanese contemporary artist Takashi Murakami may be famous among collectors for the psychedelic flowers and chaotic cartoons that populate his prints and paintings, but artists likely know him as the theorist behind the contemporary art movement he calls “Superflat.”

Partially inspired by the Pop art of Andy Warhol, in which celebrity culture and mundane mass-produced items became the focus of bright and colorful works that both celebrated and criticized consumerism, Murakami’s Superflat encompasses painting, sculpture, digital design and more to present a subversive look at consumerism but is also an effort to blend fine art and lowbrow culture.

A multifaceted and remarkably influential artist as well as a compulsive art collector, Murakami has collaborated with brands such as Louis Vuitton, while one of his most famous Superflat works is the teddy bear on the cover of the Graduation album by American rapper Kanye West.

In 1993 Murakami earned his Ph.D. from Tokyo University of the Arts, where he was trained in nihonga, a style of painting that originated in the late 19th century by artists who worked to preserve and promote the conventions and processes associated with traditional Japanese art. While practicing nihonga, Murakami began to realize that his beliefs didn’t align with the tradition, so his art subsequently took on a satirical feel that embodied a critique of the movement. Before long, his style took a drastic turn, embracing otaku, a rising postwar cultural phenomenon among Japan’s younger crowd who loved anime and manga. (Otaku is also integral to Superflat.)

This is when Murakami’s most well-known character, Mr. DOB, was born. This anime-inspired icon, which Americans might interpret as a cross between Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse and Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat given its pronounced ears and broad and menacing grin, was part of the artist’s endeavor to elevate the otaku subculture but also to target mass consumerism. While Murakami conceived of Mr. DOB years ahead of his 2000-era Superflat theory, there is much common ground between the two. Not unlike his other creations, Murakami’s Mr. DOB is equal parts erotic, disturbing and cartoonish — an incisive mockery of the mingling of commerce and fine art so prevalent in Japanese popular culture.

Find original Takashi Murakami prints, sculptures and other art on 1stDibs.