Michael Kors turns 40 in the fashion world: we review his career
Anniversary we celebrate the great landmark of the designer throughout his four decades of exceptional career
By Laird Borrelli-Person
"To be honest, sometimes I think: is all this real?"Those are the words of Michael Kors about his forty anniversary in the world of fashion, which he celebrates with a parade in style of his autumn-winter collection 2021/22.With his characteristic joy, he adds: "I still have to see people on the street with my designs."The cup of his blessings: Michael Kors has fans where he goes.
What attracts the clientele to Kors, beyond a first show and a recognizable geometric logo to the league, is the dream of belonging to the flower and cream of society.A recognizable feature of the firm has always been the winks in the sun and a fun image, either because of the flash of the blue waters, by the diamond relay of the snow or the brightness of a bulb.Famous such as Zendaya, Viola Davis or Nicole Kidman approach the designer not because they look for a Cinderella suit, but a style worthy of red carpet with the fair and necessary amount of paraphernalia, but that dazzles equally.
It is the Quintessence of New York."We are the cradle of a type of life that is pure and hard speed," says Kors.“I think fast, I move fast, I speak fast.Our way of understanding the world has to do with the movement of a life of speed and pleasures.So there is comfort - necessary to go in a hurry - but mixed with the idea that I think many people buy our designs: the desire to give a whim.As much as we want to eat a salad, what we really dream of is with a chocolate mousse. ”
The formula of Kors's success, both personally and professionally, is based on the balance of opposite poles.As he perceives himself, the designer points out that "there is a part of me that is very pragmatic, another of giving me whims and making the fool."These contrast forces are found in garments that are both timeless and recognizable, luxurious, but also accessible.Speaking of his creative process, Kors tells us that he likes to opt for neutral pallets when he makes daring silhouettes and that he decides for more “squeaky colors” when he works with simpler lines.“Do I make it easy for the public?Yes, ”he says.
With the passing of the decades, the designer has seen how fashion and communication have jumped to the global plane, and also how their transformations have accelerated exponentially. “There is no doubt that the world revolves much faster than when I started. The people of our industry have spent years talking about the rules were changing, but I think we only talked to ourselves. That if you can get sequins to go to work; carry night sports; Boots in summer, and sandals in winter. And, for many years, so we have lived in this sector, but the public did not enter that line of thought. Now there are no rules. There are no seasons, there are no borders. The dichotomy between American fashion and British, or Japanese or French fashion I think it has stopped importing, because we are all in the same orbit and there is such access to the information we learn and copy from each other. It has become much more democratic and more interesting, I think. ” Without a doubt, in the case of Kors, more interesting is the expression. Here you have a review of the forty wonderful years of him in the fashion world.
1959
Born Karl Anderson Jr. on Long Island (New York).
Circa 1964The name is changed when his mother marries Bill Kors."My mother told me:" You're going to have a new surname, why don't you take advantage and change your name too? "She makes model in advertising campaigns of cereals and household products.She sees her first musical, Annie Get Your Gun, with Ethel Merman from the protagonist.
1971Open your first store, Iron Butterfly.“He was very skilled.He had a little store in the basement, sold the things I manufactured.He was 12 years old. ”
1973It becomes a regular of the mall."I was a kid in the urbanizations zone, so I gave me an enormous rush to go to the mall," she told Vogue on one occasion."I remember once, at 14, which gave me to save to buy something very simple: a beautiful bag and the silk paper that they put inside, the entire team."
1975“Suddenly, discotequeous successes.She was 16 years old, Fiorucci platforms and jeans.He left every night. ”
1977He passes from the graduation dance of the institute to dance all night in Studio 54. He dresses with "a silk sweater rowed in a diaper."She enrolls at the Fashion Institute of Technology and works part -time at the Lothar ’s boutique.In Studio 54, one night, Bianca Jagger entered mounted in a white steed.It goes without saying that the next day, Kors was late for class."I put on a very big porsche glasses and the teacher told me:‘ Man, thanks for honoring us with your presence. ’And, of course, one with 18 years tends to take out the chop he has inside her, so I said: ‘I'm sorry, but yesterday I was at Bianca's birthday party’.And all the people of my class looked at me as saying: ‘You spend’. ”
1978Leave the university to work full time in Lothar’s as designer and shop window director.“The Fit was the only place where I had wanted to study, but I only endured semester and a half.The truth is that I was dying to work.And for leaving, ”confessed the designer.“We made simple garments.Those pants with lazada ahead, like those carried by Jackie O. Kennedy in all colors, ”Kors recalled.“It was the first time that jeans and design silk shirts were sold in that store.The first time that women of the upper class wore informal clothes. ”
1981He launches his business in May. She presents a small collection of combinable female garments, made with the help of a tailor, Dawn Mello, who is then in Bergdorf Goodman. Mello places the garments that Kors himself had taken in hand - in her mercedes of her aunt - in the shop window: a blow of effect. “I was 22 years old, I was not aware of the impact that my designs were on the shop windows on Bergdorf Goodman in my first season in the world. When I look back I think that my mother is the boutique par excellence, one who is only in New York, goes to release me. ” In December of that year a profile was published in Vogue. "With only 22 years, Kors is convinced that American women want their daily clothes to be comfortable, but have something special," you could read in that number. "I want to design garments that do not expire," said the designer.
1982
Soon a more than praise was published in the New York magazine: "Michael Kors feels that fashion would have to evolve, not revolutionize," said the text that Anna Wintour dedicated to him."He plans his collections to be small, interchangeable and he wants to focus on a type of discreet luxury."
1984It presents a collection on catwalks for the first time, in autumn, in the New York The Tower Gallery, and had magnet."Michael Kors is a man with a minimalist point of view, he knows how to give in the nail," said Women's Wear Daily.“He had waited, almost four years without making a parade.To be honest, he thought he was not going to come or God, "Kors said in an interview in 2021." He thought that they were going to come to see me.He was a rookie, a small brand with little visibility.He began to make a little noise, but he hadn't made me a name.I remember that, at the end of the parade, when I went to greet, I stayed as a stone to see that I had not only gone well, but that the public was delighted with the collection. ”
1987“My clients are safe women of themselves and like.They want to stamp their personality on the clothes they carry, not the other way around, ”
1988“At the end of the eighties, fashion began to change;We saw the lighting of the supermodels, with Linda, Cindy, Christy and Naomi.It was a wonderful moment for American fashion.When these women entered the scene, we began to see personality, diversity and variety on the catwalks.They illuminated the room, ”Kors wrote.She explored the in-depth sartorial world for her autumn-winter 1988/89 collection, in which all these models paraded.Here you can see the designs.
1989His lasting collaboration begins with the God’s Love We Deliver Foundation, which took shape when the designer visited a friend with AIDS at the Beth Israel hospital and realized that the woman with whom he shared the room never had visits.“The nursing chief told me that when her family learned that he had AIDS, they stopped talking to him.She was a outcast.She left me dusty.What inspires me most from the God’s Love Foundation is that its action is very specific: we sat down, we had dinner and felt realized, ”said the designer."It's something that can be done if we rise and get down to work."
1990It ends bankrupt, the most affordable line Kors Michael Kors in September is recovered and launched.
1991During his autumn-winter parade of 1991/2, which was held in a Chelsea loft, Suzy Menkes falls the roof on top, but, luckily, he left unharmed.The incident precipitates the creation of one week of fashion in New York centralized.Here you can see the designs of that season.
1992It debuts with its male line, Michael Kors Men, with a parade at the Grand Central Station.
1993How to get a job on wall street https://t.co/ipyc5cwzik #etf #tracker
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"One of the things that distinguishes the man whom Iman calls 'the quintessence of American design' of other designers of his generation is that he has nothing dark," writes Jonathan, go to put in his profile for Vogue of 2015. "Admit thatThe last time he set up something controversial was in his autumnal collection of 93.Carla Bruni, who was the second to leave, when he returned between Bambalinas told me that two photographers had struck in the pit.I remember that I thought that kind of aggressiveness and sadness did not fit Michael Kors ’.”
1994It presents its autumn-winter collection, she says that the idea was: "legs, legs, legs and more legs."Here you can see the designs.
1996The autumn-winter 1996/97 "is probably the most opulent parade we did at that time," says Kors, looking back."It was the first collection in which I included double -face Kashmir, all those luxurious coats ... the sweaters of that parade were all of ten layers."Here you can see all the designs.
1997Appointed creative director of the Celine de Paris."It was the only great French house known for her sportswear," Kors later told Los Angeles Times.“They are interested in real, practical, comfortable, pragmatic garments and that their luxury aura are shaken.That is just what I do. ”
1998March: Presents its first collection for Celine, that of autumn-winter 1998/99. "I always thought he was a New York of pure strain, never of the harsh I imagined that he would design for a parade in Paris," says Kors, opening the trunk of memories. “The first time I designed for Celine, that of 1998, and that I presented the collection in Paris, I felt exultant. It seemed like a movie and I, that I am very cinephile, suddenly I felt Kay Thompson on a face with an angel. ” Later, that same month, Celine Dion has a dress of that collection to sing "My Heart Will Go on" at the Oscar gala. Julio: "Paso from the baseball cap to the Parisian beret with a lot of ease," Kors said about his transatlantic incursions. “Paris is softer, New York is more sharp. Making both collections is great. I can get the two faces of my personality. ” August: Model Carolyn Murphy has a Michael Kors for Celine on Vogue's cover.
1999March: Naomi Campbell has a layer of Michael Kors from the Autumn-Winter 1999/2000 collection that, later, Joan Didion would wear in a portrait of Tina Barney.June: Kors receives the best designer of the CFDA women's fashion year, Susan Lucci is awarded.August: Design the Rene Russo costumes for the recreation of the Thomas Crown case.September: The theme of its spring-summer 2000 collection is “Palm Bitch”.
2000May: Write an article of "Nostalgia" for Vogue about the photograph he made in 1976 Arthur Elgort to the Lisa Taylor model driving: "I think it is fair to say that you can not leave behind the time when you went to adulthood to adult age ", wrote. “That photograph was published at a very serious moment, an antimoda and antiaffective moment, a jeans and shirt. My favorite garments are still the shirts, jeans and sweaters. I love the sweatshirts, I love man's sweaters, but at the same time, I don't want to lose the charm or perhaps the innocence I had before realizing - and this was a bit disappointing - that the style, after all , emanates from who carries the garment. The big question that arises as a fan of the jeans-chamiseta look is: how not to lose the slope of pleasure? It is a strip and loosen that I always have fighting in the head, the feeling of being divided by the impulse that the garment transforms who takes it and vice versa. Fashion really works when the tension between the two poles works. ” September: Open your Madison Avenue store in New York.
2001Take out the Michael Kors Collection accessories collection.
2003January: Silas Chou and Lawrence Stroll, as Sportswear Holdings, invest in Michael Kors.June: Receive the prize for the best designer of the male fashion year of the CFDA. \
2004March: presents its latest collection for Celine, which, according to the program, had "the American sports simplicity by C. Z. Guest and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy with the jovial European sophistication of Leslie Caron, Jean Seberg and Audrey Hepburn."December: He becomes a judge of the Project Runway program, nominated on several occasions to the Emmy.
2005"Again and again, the designer seeks inspiration in the open spaces of the United States."
2006Jay Gatsby and Ali McGraw in love story are the two sources of inspiration for the "Good girls" of their autumn-winter 2006/7 collection.
2008He receives his fifth consecutive nomination to the prize for the best designer of the CFDA women's fashion year.February: She presents a collection inspired by Mad Men, which, according to Vogue, is a "polid" proposal.
2009View of the first lady Michelle Obama for her official portrait of the White House.“We had made her dress, but we had no idea where she was going or why she was going to put it on.I felt very proud to see a first lady with such a modern air, so close, a first lady in a portrait with a black sweater, sleeveless, no colorful suits with a brooch.What emotion to be part of that moment, which I knew was decisive.She changed many things not only for me as a designer or as an American, but for everyone, ”Kors reflected.
2010June: It becomes the youngest winner of the award for an entire race Geoffrey Beene of the CFDA, Anna Wintour is delivered.“I am at the CFDA Board.I remember that I was in one of the meetings and Diane Von Furstenberg looked at me and said: ‘Well, let's talk about the award for an entire race’.And I said: ‘I think we have great ideas’.And she added: ‘'Look, honey, I think there is one in which everyone agrees’.And me: ‘oh, which one?’And she told me: ‘Well, let's give it to you."I looked at her and said: ‘'Nothing, it's impossible, I'm too young."And Diane sentenced: "It's not about age, but your work."September: Nicole Phelps writes that the Kors company is on its way to "transfer the barrier of one billion dollars in sales."
2011February: "The designer turns 30 in the fashion world," Phelps said in his text on the Autumn-Winter 2011/12 Kors collection. “Yes, he started very young, at 19, to be exact. Tonight he will celebrate it in the elegant corners of the Bemelmans Bar del Carlyle [...] next month, nothing more and nothing less than the US ambassador. In France he will receive him in Paris with a gala dinner. Kors is about to inaugurate a store on Rue Saint-Honoré and they are taking the last touches in their recently renovated Madison Avenue store. In other words: the designer is having a great anniversary year. ” August: She marries Lance Lepere, vice president of Michael Kors Women ’S Design, with whom she had been relationship with many years. December: Michael Kors Holdings Limited with one of the most successful public sales offers in the fashion sector throughout history. "I would not have imagined it in a million years," joked the designer in an interview in 2021. "It was a bit surreal to sound the bell, realize that my way of understanding the design and how people should dress Suddenly, a much broader audience was going to arrive coinciding with the launch of Michael Kors, and seeing that, in all the cities I stepped on, people wore my bags, my watches, my shoes. ”
2013He launches the “Watch Hunger Stop” campaign in collaboration with the United Nations World Food Program to help fight hunger in the world.
2014February: "The most commented before the Michael Kors parade was the news that thanks to the fact that his actions are going upwards, the designer has become a Milmillonario," Vogue reports.He opens a store in Shanghai and celebrates it with a parade entitled Jet Set Experience.
2015February: Vogue writes that “the new autumn-winter collection of Kors fits the right medium of the best designer: opulent and functional to leave, but faithful to his American spirit lacking complications and full of optimism with whichfounded the company. ”In the following months they are nominated for the best designer of the CFDA women's fashion year.June: God ’S Love We Deliver recognizes his commitment and generosity by putting his name to the headquarters of the Foundation.October: A profile is published in Vogue."No one believes me," he said in the interview, "but I'm a hippy of heart.The grace is that we are a huge contradiction, we enjoy the caviar with bag potatoes while listening to music by Joni Mitchell in Capri, in flip flops and ten -layer cashmere.All we like is modest, but it has a part of whim. ”
2016The then vice president Joseph R. Biden gives him the McGovern-Dole Leadership Prize of the American World Food Program for helping to combat hunger in the world.
2017"He is a designer who, when he decides to make a Tie-Dye sweatshirt, makes it with a ten-layer back (and cotton lining, not to say), in addition to accompanying her with a blanket blanket to finish off," Vogue picks up.
2018Michael Kors Holdings Limited changes the name to Capri Holdings Limited, and Capri Holdings Limited formalizes the acquisition of Versace.
2019The designer buys the rights of the Studio 54 logo and uses it in his autumn-winter parade set in the seventies, which ended with a surprise: Barry Manilow interpreting “Copacabana”.Kors went out to make the final reverence, according to Vogue, "with another legend of the time, the Patti Hansen model, which closed the parade with a pants suit in metal tones."
2021Vice President Kamala Harris looks a design by Michael Kors Collection on the cover of Vogue of February.“I have no children, so my designs are like my children;Thus we feel my husband and I about what we do.I felt proud when I saw the cover, I thought it was a very wonderful moment for the country, for the world, for myself.It is amazing.I know it sounds topical, but it was a moment of these of: Am I dreaming? ”
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