The company was founded in 1989 by Mitchell Jacobs, a former buyer at Browns. The company was named after the French artist Marcel Duchamp with the following claim by Jacobs : "Duchamp turned everyday objects into art and I turned everyday icons of men's fashion into wearable art".
The company was founded by Mitchell Jacobs in 1989, drawing from his experience as a buyer at Browns. By naming it after Marcel Duchamp, Jacobs emphasized that he transformed familiar symbols of men's fashion into wearable works of art, echoing Duchamp's own transformation of everyday objects into art.