Coppola's 'Marc by Sofia' Doc Captures Jacobs' 90s NYC
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- "Marc by Sofia" is a 70-minute documentary releasing Friday that Coppola structured as a "visual scrapbook," weaving archival 90s footage with scenes from Jacobs' Spring/Summer 2024 collection at his SoHo studio
- Marc Jacobs agreed to the project only on the condition that Sofia Coppola direct, telling Variety: "With Sofia, I knew we'd be comfortable with each other" and that the film would avoid "documentary cliches"
- Sofia Coppola initially hesitated because of their close friendship — "If it's for Marc, it has to be good" — and brought in her brother Roman Coppola to help shoot
- The film deliberately omits Jacobs' personal life; Coppola said she "never want[s] to pry," and Jacobs later regretted even a 30-second scene about his childhood because it "felt like a [typical] documentary"
- Jacobs and Coppola first crossed paths at his 1992 "grunge" collection for Perry Ellis, the show that helped codify the stripped-down anti-glamour aesthetic of 90s downtown NYC
- Jacobs' most recent collection channels that 90s grunge — including a "baby tee with a perfect mini skirt" look — though he says the film and the collection weren't planned as a tie-in
- Coppola cited Kate Moss as her personal style muse, while Jacobs pointed to Elizabeth Taylor as the glamour archetype for his mother's generation, framing the 90s as a reaction against 80s maximalism
Why it matters: The 70-minute doc is positioned as an anti-biography — both subjects explicitly reject "documentary cliches" and traditional personal-life excavation, with Jacobs even cutting a 30-second childhood moment. For a fashion audience, the film doubles as a primary-source record of a specific NYC creative moment (1992 Perry Ellis grunge onward) tied to a living designer still working in that visual vocabulary.
Ask SkimNews
