Robert Duffy

Robert Duffy (born October 14, 1954) is an American businessman. He is the co-founder of the fashion label Marc Jacobs as well as the Marc by Marc Jacobs diffusion line. Both Marc Jacobs and the Marc by Marc Jacobs collections included women's ready-to-wear, men's ready-to-wear, children's ready-to-wear, and accessories for all divisions. Duffy started the BookMarc store in early 2007. Duffy & Jacobs formed a partnership with LVMH in 1997 and Duffy acted as Design Studio Director for Louis Vuitton from 1998 to 2013. Early life and career Duffy was born on October 14, 1954, in Butler, Pennsylvania and spent his early life in Pennsylvania and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Robert Duffy started his career at Bergdorf Goodman in their buying office in 1978. In 1983 he founded the company Sketchbook with Ruben Thomas. As a young executive, after viewing Marc Jacobs’ designs during a fashion show at Parsons School of Design, Duffy hired Jacobs as the designer at Sketchbook. In 1984, Duffy renamed the company Marc Jacobs International, and Marc became an equal partner. Interviewed by Vogue about their business model, Duffy said, "I never opened a store where there is fashion. In SoHo (New York), there was nothing but a garage there when we opened. People thought I was crazy... Opening Marc by Marc was very big. Marc's love is the collection line. I always wanted the company to be broad and wanted to reach out to a lot of people. It was difficult to convince people that it was necessary - to be a luxury brand but be all price points. But I knew I could do it and I'm proud we did it"