June 29, 2011
Harper's Bazaar Magazine
Michael Kors: American Idol
Michael Kors, the designer best known for his glam fashions and arch humor, celebrates 30 years in the business. Read the interview below and then check out highlights from his 30 years in the business as well as a behind-the-scenes look at his 30th anniversary show.
By Elisa Lipsky-Karasz
It's just before 10:00 a.m., and inside one of the hulking granite shopping malls on Chicago's Magnificent Mile, a small crowd clutching steaming Venti Starbucks coffees is gawking at the scene unfolding through a shop window. A girl wearing a pink Juicy Couture tracksuit rushes up to the boutique's locked door to get a better snap with her iPhone. The object of her ardor is not Justin Bieber on a VIP shopping trip, however. It's designer Michael Kors, who is oblivious to all the attention as he focuses his charm on the four women he is styling for Oprah Winfrey's very last makeover show.
"Oh! You are more tan than I am," he exclaims in mock anger as he catches sight of one of his charges, a Chicago policewoman he's dolling up. "Let's do a tan-off. My dermatologist is going to kill me, but I lie to her all the time." As he trots around his store, happily kitting out each woman in Michael Kors booty — sequined sheaths, swaths of sand-colored jersey, and gold stiletto sandals — he dispenses as many tips and feel-good mantras as the queen of talk herself. "You're not short, you are petite," he corrects one diminutive woman. "Dress your down look up," he instructs. And "beige plus blonde equals gold," he singsongs to a platinum-maned dame as he selects jewelry. "That's fashion math."
"Fashion math" is just one Kors-ism. There's also "fashion fat," meaning when those who might be an ideal weight in the real world can't squeeze into a sample size. Then there's "fashion fame," which is different from that of, say, Kors's really famous friends, like Gwyneth Paltrow and Michael Douglas. Kors himself has attained this beatific state (where one gets great tables at restaurants but not too much paparazzi attention) thanks mostly to dispensing such quips as a judge on Project Runway. Adoring fans have even gathered them into homemade mashups on YouTube. Such notoriety does, however, mean a lot of time spent chatting with his fans about their shoes, their bags, or their Kors printed caftans, even at such far-flung locales as the Fontelina beach club in Capri, Italy. His business has benefited from such recognition too, with his three lines — Michael Kors collection, Kors Michael Kors, and Michael Michael Kors — collectively drawing $1 billion a year.
But being so approachable would be anathema to many designers. Kors is hyperaware that he is hardly a reclusive artiste: He sends his models down the runway with huge smiles plastered on their faces to punchy, poppy feel-good musical hits of yore and does his very own catwalk finale turn. "We all laugh because he walks the whole runway," says dear friend Aerin Lauder. "Most designers just peek their head out and wave." But intellectual fashion is not Kors's calling card, as many of his designs, though luxe, have a familiar and pleasingly visceral appeal; think the perfect 10-ply cashmere crewneck or a sublime tawny floor-sweeping knitted-fox fur.
"There are two kinds of designers: ones who are very happy locked in their office surrounded by their coterie. The last thing they need to do is to go to a trunk show; they'd go running for the hills," he says, sitting down for a brief break in his swank Chicago hotel suite. "I not only enjoy it, I think, how do you design things that are applicable to life — unless you live it?" He contentedly munches on minibar Pringles and goes on to talk about being a "Gleek."
It's been three decades since Kors started his namesake line, a milestone he recently celebrated with all the trappings of the life he's cultivated. First was an intimate party at the Carlyle hotel after his Fall 2011 show where he was feted by Anjelica Huston, Patti Hansen, and Rene Russo. (Kors used to sneak into the hotel at 15 to see Bobby Short, "thinking I was very glamorous with a coat over my shoulder and a big polka-dot pocket square and tie.") That was followed by a splashy dinner in Paris at the U.S. ambassador's residence, complete with Mary J. Blige performing and a raucous dance party. "I just thought, what a great way to finish the whole thing off and say thank you to everyone who's been a part of the 30 years from around the world," he says.
Being serenaded by Blige while supermodels wearing Michael Kors kiss his rosy cheeks is practically his birthright. "I grew up in a family of people who were obsessed with fashion," says Kors, who was born Karl Anderson Jr. to his mother, Joan, a former Revlon model, on Long Island. A very young Kors would accompany his grandmother Bea Hamburger on her daily buying trips to Loehmann's Back Room. "It was a sport." His grandfather, meanwhile, was a dandy. "If you said to him, 'What do you want to do on Saturday, go to a baseball game?' He would say, 'No, do you want to come with me? I have a fitting at the tailor.'" At a mere five years old, Kors styled his mother's wedding dress for her marriage to his stepfather, Bill Kors (whose moniker he took, simultaneously changing his first name). "The bows are terrible. Take off the bows," he remembers telling his mother, who at that moment became the original sleek Kors girl.
"I was always pushing her," he remembers of advising his mother, who favored low-key, simple fashions. "I was like, 'What about hot pants? Think about marabou. What about palazzos?'" Meanwhile, his grandmother taught him to never underestimate the value of a dramatic entrance. "She liked everything printed, patterned, colorful, embellished; there couldn't be enough. Five days in Florida meant six wig boxes and four furs."
Read more: Michael Kors Interview — Michael Kors Fashion Quotes - Harper's BAZAAR
http://www.harpersbazaar.com/magazine/feature-articles/best-looks-resort-2012
http://www.harpersbazaar.com/magazine/feature-articles/michael-kors-interview
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