Mage regards the growing popularity of JMM with a mixture of pride and mild apprehension. “There’s a bit of a slight cult, I think,” he said, shifting in his seat. At least for now, his customers’ desire still collides with the brand’s rarity such that particularly coveted designs can change hands on thesecondary market for over $5,000. But as he prepares to double JMM’s retail footprint, he’s wary of the cult letting in too many members. Of everyone wearing them. “I think that’s a dilemma of fashion and luxury: The harder it is to get, the more desirable it is. But as it becomes more desirable and you see more of it, then the less desirable it becomes.”
At one point, Mage told me that in his day-to-day he generally doesn’t see anyone wearing JMM. Which means that he must not check Instagram very often. Or hang around with stylist George Cortina, who has a rakish JMM collaboration to his name. “I was at a barbecue the other night,” Cortina tells me, “and Dan Levy was like, Hello, you’re not going to say anything? I’m wearing your sunglasses!” Cortina is well aware of the brand’s VIP boom, seeing as he’s introduced JMM to the likes of Jacob Elordi and Brad Pitt, the latter of whom, Cortina says, proceeded to immediately purchase 10 pairs. (It should be noted these intros happened at GQ cover shoots.)
“I think there’s a sharpness to the way I do things,” Mage responded when I asked him about his brand’s starry following. His fans, he added, tend to have “a sharp idea of their taste, a sharp idea of the construction of themselves and their own aesthetic. Jeremy [Strong] and Tom [Ford], obviously they don’t have the same style, but I think they have a certain appreciation for philosophy, literature, fashion, aestheticism, furniture, craftsmanship, and then that becomes a catalyst. They are both interested in a certain amount of excellence.”
Of course, if there’s one thing that unites the entire JMM ecosystem, it’s an interest in looking cool. Recently, Harry Styles and James Corden met up for a coffee in London behind their big JMM frames. But they weren’t actually going incognito. As Cortina puts it, “These sunglasses definitely say, Look at me.”
Jacques Marie Mage HQ is hidden behind the Hollywood store, through a door that takes you past the brand’s securely locked archive and into a bright concrete space where a few staffers are at their computers wearing sunglasses fit for a nightclub. Mage, a can of Red Bull in hand, talks me through a list of upcoming collaborative projects as we pass by crowded mood boards and stacks of 3D-printed prototypes. I spot frames scrawled with the names of Kim Gordon, Ayrton Senna, Muhammad Ali, and Patti Smith. Smith, Mage says, was already wearing JMM before they got in touch: “I think maybe what she recognized in us is that true love for art and authenticity.”
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