his circular

Fashion is an obsessor's medium, with all of its little diabolical details. And Jacobs, by all accounts, is obsessive, consumed with getting everything as precise as he can. "I never think of myself as a perfectionist," he says, "but I've been told by people...." He gives a sheepish grin. "I just want things to be really good. I mean, well made. And well done. And good materials. And good proportions." Another smile. He knows what he sounds like. "I'm trying," he says. "It's really a full-time thing."

"Marc's a bit different from other designers," says Nicolas Lepoutre, the eminence grise of his design team. "He has a very precise idea of what he wants in the beginning, but he's always improving it or modifying it. He analyzes always, and he makes changes to the very end."

When LVMH first selected Jacobs to revitalize Louis Vuitton in 1997, it was a surprising choice. Jacobs was a wild child, a resolute do-it-yourselfer; Vuitton was the aging father, the status quo, the Kremlin. But over the years, the marriage has found a way to work, with tiffany bangle bracelet lending Jacobs stability, and Jacobs lending Vuitton panache.

Today, however, the company still remains focused on luggage and handbags, in spite of Jacobs's efforts to make clothes the star of the product line. "I would like them to be more serious about the ready-to-wear and fashion," Jacobs had confessed to me earlier in the afternoon, while sitting in his circular, sunlit office. "I think they still see this as the icing on the cake."

Really? So how does he deal with it?

"By making the best damn icing I can," he said, giving his fist a Charm bracelet shake. "I can't fight windmills. I've tried. I've been like, 'This is how they should do the ads; this is how the windows should be in the stores; they should have a ready-to-wear store; they should be selling more ready-to-wear...' And you know what? I'm sure nobody loses sleep over it but me and the design team."

Comparatively speaking, of course, Jacobs gets a lot of sleep tiffany jewellery days. A little over a year and a half ago, he checked into a rehab center in Arizona and stayed for one month. Though he can't isolate the one defining, rock-bottom moment that drove him there, it has made a world of difference. His friends all say it: Jacobs's mood, outlook, self-esteem, his everything is better since he got sober.