The Man Who’s Livin’ La Vida LV

Minutes before the first fashion groupies, celebrities and socialites streamed into the new Louis Vuitton store on Rodeo Drive, Marc Jacobs, the design guru credited with revitalizing the collection, fretted as nervously as a guy on his first prom date.

“I used to be such a natural at these things,” he moaned. “Now I’m like, ‘Is anybody going to come? Are they going to like it?’ I’ve been trying to figure out if it’s age, or if I’ve just done it all before,” said the 36-year-old veteran of fashion companies around the world.

Jacobs needn’t have worried. Like a stiff Santa Ana gale, the opening of the bright and airy 12,000-square-foot store on Monday night blew the dust off the Louis Vuitton image in Los Angeles. Gone is the cramped and dated store a few doors north on Rodeo.

Though he is the first to credit the work of his Louis Vuitton team, Jacobs and company are on a roll in transforming the 145-year-old French luggage company with its LV logo into a full-scale fashion house. The Beverly Hills store--one of four new flagship stores worldwide to carry the entire Vuitton line--is a symbol of the company’s revival as a destination for accessories and, now, clothing and shoes.

Jacobs’ collection matches what he calls the “make believe” aspect of Los Angeles. There are skunk fur tunics, purple patent “bowling bag” purses, $9,000 rhinestoned ponchos and $10,000 pants striped with patent leather sequins--as well as more practical $1,200 wool wrap coats.

“L.A. is such a funny place,” he said. “People in L.A. can wear chiffon dresses and high heels because they live in their cars--a totally protected environment.”

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In the nearly three years since he was appointed to create the first clothing collection for Louis Vuitton, Jacobs has helped give a new fashion cachet to the once-overexposed LV monogram. Like Tom Ford at Gucci, Jacobs and the LV team are showing how a stale company can revive its image and its bottom line with the right mix of design skill, marketing savvy and store placement. His new product contributions now represent nearly 20% of Louis Vuitton’s sales.

“I guess that’s part of what makes me nervous,” Jacobs said. “The better things go, the more is expected of us.”

Jacobs undoubtedly has become a player. Once fired from Perry Ellis for offering a designer grunge collection, Jacobs has moved to Paris from New York and ascended to one of fashion’s most exalted positions--atop Louis Vuitton, the cornerstone of the LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton luxury goods empire.

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LVMH, headed by Frenchman Bernard Arnault, is one of the most powerful fashion conglomerates in the world, having acquired Christian Dior, Givenchy, Loewe, Celine and a host of smaller fashion and beauty companies worldwide.

Jacobs, like Michael Kors at Celine and Alexander McQueen at Givenchy, is one of a handful of young, often-struggling designers that Arnault has appointed to exalted design posts. The job transformed Jacobs’ life and business.

“To have a show in Paris makes you instantly world recognized. There’s a bigger audience paying attention to what I do now,” he said.

In January, he will step into the spotlight again when he puts Louis Vuitton menswear on the Paris runway for the first time.

“I guess based on the success of the women’s show, everyone at Louis Vuitton was eager to have a men’s show,” he said.

A few weeks later in New York, he’ll show his Marc Jacobs men’s and women’s ready-to-wear collections. Jacobs also is developing prototype jewelry and glassware collections for Louis Vuitton.

“I don’t know if it will ever see the light of day,” he said. In his scant spare time, he’s trying to expand his own label with a less expensive clothing collection he hopes to call “Marc.” He’s getting an assist from his longtime business partner, Robert Duffy, who is president and creative director of Marc Jacobs International.

As part of the agreement with Jacobs, LVMH also owns one-third of Jacobs’ New York-based signature lines and will likely help finance a store expansion plan. Jacobs and Duffy independently opened their only store, an intimate shop on SoHo’s Mercer Street, in August 1997.

In contrast, this week alone, Louis Vuitton opens stores in Sydney, Australia, and Taipei, Taiwan. The Rodeo Drive store became the 260th store in the international chain.

“When I was appointed president of the company in 1990, we had 120 stores,” said Yves Carcelle, chairman of Louis Vuitton. “A lot of people predicted that after 150 stores, we would have hit the sky. But we have been opening 10 to 15 new stores each year ever since. We see no reason to reduce the speed for the years to come,” he said. The company annually spends $100 million on building or renovating its store fleet.

The Beverly Hills project began two years ago when the company learned that the Fred Hayman store site was available.

“Rodeo Drive is one of the 10 avenues in the world that really count,” Carcelle said. “We are in the luxury industry. We logically deserve a store on Rodeo Drive--and a big one.”

Architect Peter Marino designed the store, but not in a way to match the others exactly.

“We want to give each store its personality . . . and for people to be curious to see the others,” Carcelle said. To that effect, the triangular, multilevel layout of the Hayman store has been retained.

The past, present and future are represented with a floor-to-ceiling display of vintage Vuitton trunks flanked by cases of Jacobs’ vivid new accessories and a video screen tower of runway shows. And then there are the updated products: the LV logo, now shrunken and applied onto tiny cubes and dangled from shoes, bags and hair ornaments; the legendary monogrammed canvas bags recast in glistening red, purple, pink or blue patent leather.

The new look may not endure another 145 years, but it doesn’t have to. For now, it’s enough to showcase what Carcelle called “a modern way of celebrating the past.”

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Valli Herman-Cohen can be reached by e-mail at valli.herman-cohen@latimes.com. Michael Quintanilla can be reached by e-mail at michael.quintanilla@latimes.com.