Marc Jacobs & Neville Envision A Brand New Future

W Magazine’s David Amsden interviewed Marc Jacobs about his upcoming brand makeover in life after his 16 year tenure as creative director of Louis Vuitton.

Among the first public signifiers that a new era has dawned is the current advertising campaign. Featuring Miley Cyrus, it was shot by David Sims, making it the first time in 16 years that Jacobs has not worked with Juergen Teller, whose past Marc Jacobs campaigns (Victoria Beckham emerging from a shopping bag, a topless Charlotte Rampling lounging on a bed) came to define the brand almost as much as the clothing. “Juergen didn’t want to shoot Miley. I didn’t get into why,” Jacobs said. “It was our first time disagreeing, and maybe if we had disagreed more in the past I would have been more patient. Who knows? I guess a lot of people had problems with her behavior or something—because they’re all so pure and chaste, right?” Jacobs, an exceedingly earnest personality in general, let slip a sarcastic snicker. “One thing I don’t tolerate is hypocrisy. Anyway, my attitude was: You don’t want to do it? Fine. Sorry it’s not working for you; but it’s my choice.” Parting with Teller wasn’t part of any specific brand strategy—“I can’t even say the word ‘strategy’ with a straight face; we’re really just intuitive and impulsive,” Jacobs noted—but it allowed him to become more at ease with shaking things up at every level of the company. “For the first time in a long time, this is the only thing I have to think about,” he said. “It feels like an opportunity to clean house and redecorate and renovate and get in touch with what initially made us tick, you know?”