(Above) Discussion here in the Marc Jacobs showroom in SoHo centers on fabric selections for upcoming collections. Photo by Ellen T. White
Reputation, cachet, buzz in fashion all depend on the designer's ability to dazzle his or her audience, but the responsibility for making a successful run in the industry ultimately depends on a creative president. Take the case of Miguel Adrover. Doesn't ring a bell? He was hailed as fashion design's "It" boy after he unveiled his first collection in 1999. Yet after his backer fell prey to the dotcom bust, problems with sourcing, pricing and shipping finally led to Adrover's demise. "The commercial demands of the business are too pressing to leave room for practitioners more involved with conceptual issues than the bottom line," a fashion insider said at the time adding: "Where's the Robert Duffy?"
Yves Saint Laurent had Pierre Bergé; Valentino had Giancarlo Giammetti, and Prada, Patrizio Bertelli. Robert Duffy is credited by industry insiders with making Marc Jacobs' career possible. On the way out of Perry Ellis, he and Jacobs took a cut in their severance to ensure their team continued to get paid and didn't lose their pensions or health benefits. Duffy mortgaged his home - for the second time. "It was kind of terrifying," says Leslie Clements, senior vice president of collection sales at Marc Jacobs International, who, along with others, left Perry Ellis for Marc Jacobs International. "I worried about Robert putting everything on the line."
(Left) Viva Sofia! Sofia Coppola is a muse for Marc Jacobs. Seen here behind a pensive Jacobs is a portrait of the actress and filmmaker by artist Elizabeth Peyton. The watercolor hangs in the office he shares with Robert Duffy. Photo by Ellen T. White
To this day, Duffy's loyalty and generosity to those he works with are legendary. The lowliest store employee has health benefits and a clothes allowance. For the company's lavish end-of-the-year costume party, staff are flown in from all over the world. Every bride gets a Marc Jacobs dress for her wedding. "You see," says Duffy's assistant Marshall Vickness, proudly, "we are all family."
Jacobs calls Duffy a "father" to everyone in the company, and admits that it is Duffy, not he, who's at the controls. "Robert is an extremely creative person, but he's also practical," Jacobs explains. "He sees the dates and deliveries that need to be done." He also shores up Jacobs, who has chronic doubts over whether he can summon his creative muse from season to season, even as he's being lauded on the runway.
Marc Jacobs International turned out stellar collections for stores such as Barney's and Saks and stayed afloat. The year 1997 was pivotal. Industrialist Bernard Arnault, CEO of the French luxury-goods manufacturer Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, pressed Jacobs to create the company's first ready-to-wear line. Arnault had no interest in Marc Jacobs International - or so he thought. In the deal Duffy brokered, Louis Vuitton bought 96 percent of MJI, but MJI held on to its brand, keeping two-thirds interest in their trademarks.
Duffy and Jacobs joined LV as studio director and creative director, respectively. In that first year, MJI opened its first free-standing store on Mercer Street, a space Duffy - with his usual prescience - had rented (and kept empty) for next to nothing when SoHo was still considered a retail no man's land. "I had a dream," he says, "and I knew what was going to happen to SoHo." A scant decade later, Marc Jacobs International has 18 locations in the United States and 65 internationally, including in China, Moscow and Dubai. MJI's estimated revenues were reported last year at more than $350 million.
To reduce Duffy's talent to numbers would be missing the point. His intuitive instinct for retail makes him a "savant," according to some. (So you know, aside from a couple of courses at Butler County Community College, he never finished college or attended business school.) Where Duffy builds a Marc Jacobs store, shoppers come - and international boutiques soon follow. Take the transformation of western Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, where there are three Marc Jacobs stores carrying different lines.
While those stores were going up, purveyors of handbags, French linens, gifts and skin products, among others, moved in, turning the area into a high-end retail mecca practically overnight. The same thing happened on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles and on Damen Avenue in Chicago. "That's been my strength," he says, "going into neighborhoods before other people and getting the space cheap." The design of the stores fits into the character of the neighborhood, and the windows - occasionally political (liberal) or ironic in design - are often Duffy-inspired. Alas, he won't be opening a store in Pittsburgh any time soon. His instincts tell him there aren't yet the shoppers who would flock to it.
If Duffy has a flaw, it's his impatience. "He knows what he wants, and he finds a way to get what he wants," says Patrice Lataillade, formerly of Louis Vuitton, now MJI's COO. Lataillade is the man who's charged with the sometimes onerous task of justifying Duffy's ideas to LV brass. And if the brass stalls, Duffy just moves ahead - by producing a home-ware line of china and crystal in the Czech Republic, for instance, and then slipping it into a store. When they sell, the items speak for themselves. "He's a very good merchant. He has a very good fashion sense. He's very smart," says Lataillade. "He wants to go his own special way, and he has a good intuition."
(Left) Marc Jacobs' Standard Supply Big Tote ($168). Photo courtesy of Marc Jacobs International
Duffy is credited with conceiving a lower-priced accessory line of items, including bags, T-shirts and jewelry, under the Marc by Marc Jacobs label. The brand makes Marc Jacobs accessible to, arguably, everyone, without diluting the cachet of the brand or compromising Jacobs' design. Fortune reported that the Bleecker Street accessory store - packed until 10 at night - generates sales of $25,000 per square foot, which far exceeds the $4,032 raked in by the average Apple store. Lataillade says this is an exaggeration, "but not by much." There you'll find the infamous T-shirts of celebrities such as Hilary Swank and Victoria Beckham in the buff ("Protect the skin you're in"), Duffy's scheme to raise money for melanoma research. In a T-shirt spoofing himself, a naked Duffy is modestly covered with a sign saying, "SOLD OUT."
Success has made Duffy that much more generous. He's a soft touch for the worthy cause - such as the Provincetown's art association and its library - with his anonymous giving reported in the millions. As his brother Jim Duffy notices, success has also made him happier. "Robert's always known he wanted to be surrounded by beautiful things," says Jim, "and wealth makes that possible." But if the choice were between being wealthy and working in fashion, fashion would win.
Could Duffy have foreseen all this? "No, not this boy from Butler," he says. "I never could have imagined it. Did I want that stuff? No. I just wanted a company. I wanted our company to be a part of contemporary culture like Calvin Klein but for a different generation and in a different way.
Ellen T. White is author of Simply Irresistible: Unleash Your Inner Siren and Mesmerize Men With Help From the Most Famous and Infamous Women in History (ellentwhite.com), published by Running Press in January and reviewed in Pittsburgh magazine in February. She lived in Pittsburgh in the mid-1990s.