Guess Founder to Step Down as Chairman, CEO : Clothing: Georges Marciano also will sell back his stake in the jeans maker. No reason was given for his departure.

Guess Inc. founder Georges Marciano, who led the jeans maker through explosive growth and a bitter legal war with rival Jordache, is resigning as Guess chairman and chief executive, Bloomberg News Service reported Monday.

Marciano, 46, also is selling his 40% stake in privately held Guess back to the Los Angeles-based company for an undisclosed price, Bloomberg said.

That would leave his three brothers, Maurice, Paul and Armand, as the only owners of the company. Maurice, 44, will assume George’s executive positions, Bloomberg said.

No reason was given for Georges Marciano’s departure. Neither he nor his brothers could be reached for comment by The Times late Monday.

The Marcianos turned Guess into one of the apparel industry’s major success stories and into one of Southern California’s leading apparel employers. Started with an investment of $170,000 in late 1981, the company’s sales are estimated to exceed $500 million annually.

The company is known for its often racy advertising and famous logo--a triangle with “Guess?” inscribed within. The logo is not only on jeans but has also adorned swimsuits, watches, eyeglasses and children’s clothing.

Georges Marciano’s reign at Guess also was marked by a 6 1/2-year legal brawl between his company and Jordache, a rival jeans maker led by the Marcianos’ longtime foes, the Nakash brothers of New York.

The feud arose from a falling-out between the families over a stake in Guess that the Nakashes bought about 18 months after the company was started. It blossomed into a host of federal investigations, a dozen lawsuits and an estimated $80 million in legal expenses for the companies.

The wrangling finally ended in 1990 with a settlement that restored full ownership of Guess to the Marcianos and provided the Nakashes with an undisclosed share of $106 million in Guess profits that had been set aside during the battle.

Two years later, Guess became the focus of another legal effort. The federal government, looking to crack down on labor-law violations in the apparel industry, reached agreement with Guess to eliminate alleged abuses by the company’s estimated 100 contractors.

The pact marked the first time that a major producer would be held directly responsible for the wages and working conditions under which its brand-name products are made--even when the garments are actually sewn by independent contractors.

Although Georges Marciano’s departure from Guess was not explained, it gave rise to speculation within garment industry circles that he might now turn his attention to Cherokee Inc., a Sunland-based maker of young women’s apparel.

Two months ago, shortly after struggling Cherokee emerged from a reorganization under federal bankruptcy law, Georges Marciano disclosed that he had acquired a 19.9% stake in Cherokee.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Marciano said he bought the stock for investment purposes, noting that he believed Cherokee had a good product line and valuable trade name.

Cherokee executives could not be reached late Monday, but at the time of Marciano’s investment, Cherokee had declined any comment on Marciano’s involvement.