Marc Jacobs and Sofia Coppola Are Fashion’s Greatest Friends
From red carpets and film sets to a Louis Vuitton bag that bears her name, the designer and director have spent three decades inspiring one another.
Since they first crossed paths in New York in the early ’90s, Marc Jacobs and Sofia Coppola have been in constant dialogue: his clothes appearing in her films, her style and sensibility inspiring his runways, and their names becoming synonymous with downtown cool. Three decades later, the designer and the filmmaker remain one of fashion's most enduring creative friendships. Here, their best moments together over the years:
Marc Jacobs (right) and an unidentified fashion model, New York, New York, circa 1990
Jacobs and Coppola first crossed paths around 1992, when she visited the Perry Ellis showroom with her mother, Eleanor Coppola, on a trip to New York. Coppola later attended Jacobs’s groundbreaking (though panned, at the time) spring/summer 1993 grunge show.
Amanda de Cadenet, Sofia Coppola, Zoe Cassavetes, and Lisa Ann attend the New York launch party for Sofia Coppola's clothing line Milk Fed at Bloomingdale's in New York City on December 8, 1994.
The next year, in 1994, Coppola and then-boyfriend Spike Jonze helped produce the guerrilla-style debut fashion show for X-Girl, the label founded by Sonic Youth frontwoman Kim Gordon and Daisy von Furth (Jacobs was a friend of the band, having worked with them on their 1992 “Sugar Kane” music video). The X-Girl show, which featured models like Chloë Sevigny and Padma Lakshmi in slip skirts and baby tees, was timed to coincide with the end of Marc Jacobs’s official NYFW runway presentation, so that his guests would see it.
Jacobs and Coppola in 1999 at a launch party for The Visionaire 30: The Game, a collaboration with Louis Vuitton (Jacobs became the artistic director of LV in 1997). The following year, Coppola walked in Jacobs’s 2000 fall/winter show.
Coppola and Jacobs’s friendship quickly blossomed into a truly symbiotic partnership across creative fields. In 2002, she became the first face of the namesake Marc Jacobs fragrance with a dreamy campaign shot by Juergen Teller.
Kirsten Dunst and Coppola front row at the fall 2002 Marc Jacobs show. Jacobs would go on to assist with the costumes for Coppola’s Marie Antoinette in 2006, starring Dunst.
Jacobs and Coppola at the designer’s 2003 holiday party at the Rainbow Room in New York City.
Coppola, Jacobs, and close friend Zoe Cassavetes backstage at Jacobs’s spring 2004 show. Jacobs infamously wore a neck brace following a brief dog-walking accident.
While 1999 cult-classic The Virgin Suicides was Coppola’s debut feature film, it was Lost in Translation, starring Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray, that cemented her status as a major emerging voice in Hollywood. In 2004, Coppola accepted the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film, wearing a silk dress custom-designed by Jacobs. (The designer also provided some of the coats Johansson’s character wore.)
A few months later, Jacobs and Coppola attended the 2004 Met Gala together. The theme? “Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the 18th Century.” Coppola wore a bias-cut gold lamé dress, designed by Jacobs, of course.
Jacobs and Coppola backstage at the Louis Vuitton spring 2005 show in Paris.
Jacobs and Coppola hanging out at Out Magazine’s annual “Out 100” Gala in 2005.
Jacobs and Coppola back in Paris, this time at celebrity haunt Davé in 2006.
A Gen X fever dream: Jacobs and Coppola backstage at NYFW with Lil Kim in 2007.
In 2008, Jacobs cast Sofia and her father, Francis Ford Coppola, in an ad for Louis Vuitton, shot by Annie Leibovitz in Argentina.
That same year, Coppola and Jacobs attended the Met Gala together again, this time themed: “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy.” Coppola wore a simple and elegant custom dress by Jacobs.
In 2011, Jacobs was honored with the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award by the CFDA. Coppola presented the trophy, recalling during her speech how seeing Jacobs’s Perry Ellis designs made her feel “for the first time that someone was making clothes for me.”
Jacobs, Kim Gordon, and Coppola at the after party for the Marc Jacobs spring 2012 show in New York City.
Coppola in a look from the Marc Jacobs fall 2013 collection, at the “Punk: Chaos to Couture” themed 2013 Met Gala.
Backstage at Jacobs’s fall 2013 show at the New York Armory.
Jacobs ended his sixteen-year tenure as the artistic director of Louis Vuitton with his final spring 2014 show in Paris. Pictured here, Jacobs and Coppola embrace backstage after the show.
Coppola outside the LV show, carrying one of the limited-edition “S.C.” bags she designed for the brand at the request of Jacobs.
Coppola went from starring in Jacobs’s first fragrance campaigns to directing them. Her 2013-14 spots for the brand’s Daisy fragrances are, in a word, iconic.
Jacobs and Coppola have remained close friends into the 2020s. Here, they’re pictured leaving the Prada resort show in New York City in 2019.
In September 2025, Jacobs and Coppola attend the Venice International Film Festival premiere of her documentary about the designer, Marc by Sofia.
Coppola and Jacobs in Venice.
At the closing-night premiere of Marc by Sofia at the Doc Fortnight Film Festival at MoMA, February 2026.
Coppola and Jacobs promoting Marc by Sofia on Late Night With Seth Meyers, March 2026.
