a laugh. “I said ‘Well, you’re Elle Macpherson, of course
wear flip-flops!’”
This balancing act of exclusivity and accessibility has long
been the Michael Kors modus operandi and there’s no denying
how effective it is. The current MK offering includes collections
for Michael Kors Collection, the Michael Michael Kors diffusion
line, a menswear offering, a jewellery selection and a range of
smartwatches called Michael Kors Access. The brand’s fan base
ranges from royalty (three generations of the Greek royal family
- the Queen, Crown Princess and Princess Maria-Olympia of
Greece – are all Kors devotees) to First Ladies (Michelle Obama
famously wore a Michael Kors sleeveless shift dress for her first
portrait as FLOTUS in 2009) to supermodels and Oscar winners.
Kors was the first designer to embrace fashion darling Blake Lively
and is the favoured handbag designer of Amal Clooney.
On top of everything else (the fame, the accolades, the circle
of A-list BFFs), it pays handsomely. When Kors took his company
public in 2011 its estimated value was $4.8 billion – while Kors’
personal wealth clocks in at a cool $1.2 billion. And lest you
think he has plans to slow down as he approaches his 60th
birthday, there was the announcement in September that Kors had
purchased Versace for $2 billion, in a move Donatella Versace
dubbed “a very exciting moment”. The deal was finalised in
January and Kors has already laid out his plans for the storied
Italian fashion house, including expanding its retail offering to
300 stores, launching e-commerce and building up the brand’s
accessories and footwear offering.
With the name Michael Kors now poised to shift from fashion
designer to global fashion conglomerate, it’s worth questioning
how Kors has achieved a level of success that many designers
only dream of. What is the MK special sauce?
For one, he’s adaptable. Kors has lead the charge in embracing
a more diverse runway. At spring/summer19 he cast models
from a variety of ages and sizes (curvaceous Ashley Graham is
one of his catwalk mainstays) alongside trans model and activist
Teddy Quinlivan. In terms of diversity he was far ahead of the
pack: half of the 65 models who walked the show were men
and women of colour, including burgeoning Australian-Sudanese
supermodel Adut Akech.
“I don’t understand designers who say, ‘The models all have
to be 22 years old’, ‘The models have to be one size’, ‘The
models have to have one look’. I mean, how boring!” exclaims
Kors. “I don’t think any differently dressing Cara Taylor, who is
a teenager, to Karen Elson, who is a mother of two. I don’t think
any differently from [dressing] Bella Hadid to Ashley Graham.”
“I’ve always tried to have a mix of girls,” he continues. “It’s
funny, Iman [the iconic Somalian supermodel] was here in
New York recently. She’s someone I’ve known for a long time
and when I saw her she said I was one of the few designers
Gigi Hadid
and Joan
Smalls at the
Michael Kors
SS19 showWords: Grace O’Neill. Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans