By Katelan Cunningham
Fashion designer Marc Jacobs and his business partner Robert Duffy visited the Marc by Marc Jacobs storeOct. 14 in honor of their most recent community project, the Savannah Skate Park.
To raise money for the Savannah Skate Park, skate-themed T-shirts will be sold through their stores with the profits benefiting the construction of the park. Both Duffy and Jacobs were at the store for the fund-raising event.
Jacobs signed T-shirts and other Marc Jacobs clothing throughout the afternoon.The line to get Marc Jacobs’ autograph started on the sidewalk and looped through the entire store. The park will be built at Lake Mayer. The fundraising goal for the skate park is $50,000. The store raised around $18,000 on the one day just in T-shirt sales.
Some people who waited in line got a free copy of the photography book “The Men and Women of Marc Jacobs” featuring the work of Brian Bowen Smith. Sales from the $100 book went to help breast cancer research. Other projects Jacobs and Duffy have in the works are a girls’ school in Cairo, Egypt and a Community Center in Massachusetts.
Jacobs and Duffy have opened more than 100 stores in cities around the world since they started the company in 1984. The duo have initiated community projects in those cities in an effort to give back.
Duffy said, “One of the things that we stick to is that a certain percentage of our projects always go to charities.”
Jacobs and Duffy decided on a skate park because they saw an audience for one in Savannah. Duffy is a resident of Savannah himself and said many of his employees skate.
“I think both of us have a really strong sense of community and anywhere we are is where we try to help and be of service to others,” Jacobs said.
Brittany Monty, second-year fashion design student from Saranac Lake, New York waited in line for more than two hours to meet Jacobs. She said about Marc Jacobs’ clothing line, “I just love that it’s really feminine but really fun, and I really would just love to design for him one day.”
Duffy appreciates the artistic SCAD community and said that right now Marc Jacobs employs 35-40 SCAD graduates. Most of the shirts sold for the skate park were designed by SCAD students and alumni.
“We both do what we can to keep each other happy and to help the communities that we love and live in,” Jacobs said.
