July 28, 2025 |
When the Venice Film Festival kicks off on August 27, cinephiles will find themselves queueing for auteur-driven films, yes – the latest from Gus Van Sant and a new Werner Herzog, to name a few – but also for a glittering fashion documentary of rare pedigree. Directed by Sofia Coppola, a new film charting the illustrious career of Marc Jacobs from New York nightlife darling to global fashion icon is set to premiere. Titled Marc by Sofia – cheekily nodding to Jacobs’s beloved Marc by Marc Jacobs line – the documentary comes off the back of a more than 20-year collaboration between two of pop culture’s most stylish minds and dearest friends.
Premiering out of competition – meaning it won’t be battling it out for the top prize – Marc by Sofia is less of a biography and more a love letter. Think: archival footage, candid moments and couture confessions all seen through the Lost In Translation and Priscilla director’s signature dreamy lens.
Coppola and Jacobs’s friendship began in 1992, when the filmmaker, fresh off her X-Girl days and already a tastemaker in her own right, asked to meet Jacobs after his now-mythologised grunge collection for Perry Ellis. Sparks flew. Soon, Sofia was starring in Jacobs’ fragrance campaigns, directing dreamy Daisy perfume ads and designing accessories with him at Louis Vuitton – back when Jacobs was spearheading the maison’s ready-to-wear revolution from 1997 through to 2013. Over time, their creative connection turned into a mutual admiration that bridged film reels and fashion runways. They reunited again for Heaven by Marc Jacobs, the designer’s youthful sub-label launched in 2020, bringing their synergy to a new generation of cool kids.
Marc by Sofia also comes during a milestone year for Coppola, who just celebrated the 25th anniversary of The Virgin Suicides with a lush monograph of on-set images – the first book from her publishing imprint, Important Flowers. As for Jacobs? He remains as prolific and unpredictable as ever, recently unveiling his AW25 collection at the New York Public Library – still proving he can mix the theatrical with the intimate like no one else.
While the dirty details on what Marc by Sofia will cover remain under wraps, the fact that the man behind some of fashion’s most iconic moments is being captured by his longtime muse and confidante feels not only rare, but full-circle. No filler, no distance – just two friends, reflecting on decades of creative mischief.
Here, we look back at some of the best crossover moments between the director and designer, from those glorious Daisy campaigns to their recent Heaven collabs.
1. x-girl’s guerilla invasion
On a chilly spring morning in 1994, fashion history was made – not on the runway, but on the streets of New York’s Soho. The occasion was the debut of X-Girl, the underground label founded by Kim Gordon and Daisy von Furth, and the show was anything but conventional. Timed to coincide with the post-show chaos of Marc Jacobs’ official runway presentation, it hijacked the moment, catching fashion editors, photographers and celebrities as they spilled onto the pavement. There, a cast of downtown It-girls – including Chloë Sevigny and Pumpkin Wentzel – stormed the street in plaid mini skirts, baby tees and skater silhouettes, the very DNA of ‘90s cool.
Behind the scenes, Coppola and then-boyfriend Spike Jonze helped orchestrate the show’s guerilla production. Coppola’s fingerprints were all over it: unfussy, cinematic and perfectly in tune with the emerging aesthetic of anti-fashion fashion. A longtime Marc Jacobs muse, her presence at the intersection of these two worlds helped cement the show’s subcultural cred.
2. the face of Marc Jacobs fragrance
In 2002, Coppola became the first ever face of Marc Jacobs fragrance in a dreamy series of images shot by famed photographer Juergen Teller. The campaign captured Coppola’s understated elegance and cinematic aura, with soft lighting and natural settings evoking her signature aesthetic, marking the beginning of a long creative partnership between the pair.
3. marie antoinette
When Coppola reimagined Marie Antoinette in 2006, she did it with pastel wigs, punk soundtracks and a distinctly modern eye – and Jacobs was right there with her. A close friend and longtime collaborator, Jacobs designed a selection of the film’s costumes, infusing 18th-century silhouettes with his playful, downtown sensibility. While Milena Canonero handled the film’s award-winning overall costume design, Jacobs’ touch added a knowing wink to Coppola’s dreamy, hyper-stylised Versailles. It was fashion fantasy filtered through a rock’n’roll lens – think powdered sugar tones, silk bows and Converse sneakers peeking out from under corseted gowns.
4. A family affair
In 2008, Louis Vuitton, under the creative direction of Jacobs, cast Sofia Coppola and her father, legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, as the faces of its Core Values campaign. Shot by Annie Leibovitz in Argentina, the campaign captured a quiet moment between the Oscar Award-winning father and daughter in a sunlit field, evoking the romance of travel. A family affair, Louis Vuitton style.
5. the bowling bag
In 2009, Coppola bagged a big brand design deal with Louis Vuitton, where Jacobs was creative director at the time, to co-sign a new limited-edition top-handle carryall. Calling it the SC bag – for Sofia Coppola of course – the design blended the filmmaker’s minimalist sensibilities with Vuitton’s luxury craftsmanship, featuring clean lines, rich suede interiors and colours like deep burgundy and slate grey that reflected her personal wardrobe.
6. the academy awards
The night Sofia Coppola took home the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Lost in Translation, she did it in custom Marc Jacobs. Whipped up especially for the occasion by her longtime friend and Louis Vuitton collaborator, the dress – a navy blue silk slip with frilled shoulder straps – was as understated and elegant as Coppola herself. No surprise there – Jacobs and the director have shared a creative shorthand since their twenties, when they first started running in the same New York circles. That night in 2004, her win wasn’t just cinematic – it was sartorial too.
7. the end of an era
By 2013, Jacobs was calling the curtain closed on his 16-year tenure at the helm of Louis Vuitton, marking the end of a transformative era for the French fashion house. To commemorate the occasion, the American designer called upon Coppola to star in his final campaign. Lensed by Steven Meisel in New York, Jacobs set out to celebrate the women that inspired him, his muses, each styled in theatrical black, navy and burgundy looks evoking a kind of fashion requiem. And so, with Coppola posing for the SS14 collection alongside the likes of Gisele Bundchen, Caroline de Maigret, Edie Campbell, Fan Bingbing and Catherine Deneuve, the campaign became a visual tribute to his time at LV.
8. daisy daydreams
Sofia Coppola has also become a defining creative force behind the dreamy world of Marc Jacobs’s Daisy fragrances. Beyond being the original face of the designer’s first perfume, she stepped behind the camera to direct several of the brand’s most iconic campaigns, including the 2013 film for Daisy, Daisy Eau So Fresh and Daisy Dream. Set in golden meadows and sunlit streams, her films are soaked in nostalgia and femininity, with scenes of girls in ethereal white dresses running barefoot through daisy-covered hills. Coppola cast models like Malaika Firth, Ondria Hardin, Antonia Wesseloh and Sophia Ahrens, channeling the soft-focus atmosphere and hazy intimacy that define her cinematic style. The visuals recall her early films, especially The Virgin Suicides, with their sense of youthful escapism and quiet rebellion. Her direction helped transform Daisy from a fragrance into a full-fledged mood – delicate, nostalgic and effortlessly cool.
9. a match made in heaven
A match literally made in Heaven emerged in 2021 when Coppola and Jacobs joined forces to print stills from the director’s 1999 cult classic The Virgin Suicides onto a capsule collection for Marc Jacobs’ Gen-Z sub-label Heaven by Marc Jacobs. The pieces featured ethereal imagery and dialogue snippets, channeling the film’s dreamy melancholy into graphic tees, skirts and jackets.
10. a creative crossover
At Control Gallery in 2022, the exhibition Just Like Heaven opened in LA, unfurling like a sort of love letter to Marc Jacobs. On view were photographs, fashion pieces and multimedia installations celebrating the collaborative spirit of the brand and its sub-label, Heaven by Marc Jacobs, including an original work by Coppola. This work appeared alongside pieces by the likes of Damien Hirst, Petra Collins and Futura 2000 amongst others.
Top image: photography courtesy of Marc Jacobs.
