BOAT LIFEWWW.BOATINTERNATIONAL.COM APRIL 2017Pictured here in Germany in 1931
wearing her signature sailor’s suit
and sporting the distinctive bob that
made her an icon of flapper style,
Louise Brooks is every inch the silver
screen starlet.
Just two years earlier she had found
fame in Europe in Georg Wilhelm
Pabst’s controversial masterpiece
Pandora’s Box but life as a major
actress never sat easily with Brooks.
Having stepped onto the boat to
Germany after being blacklisted by
Hollywood’s Paramount Pictures in
1929, she was open about her hatred of
the studio system, saying: “There is no
other occupation in the world that so
closely resembled enslavement as the
career of a film star.”
Her reputation as a fashion trendsetter,
however, is one that Brooks fully
embraced. A leading figure of the
Roaring Twenties, her taste for lavish
furs, beaded gowns, velvet jackets and
sleek suits made her a style pin-up
throughout her career. Brooks’s real
treasures, however, came from beneath
the waves, with long strings of pearls
becoming something of a trademark
after her turn as the chic yet conniving
showgirl Margaret Odell in 1929’s The
Canary Murder Case.
Brooks’s film career had sadly faded by
1938, reducing her to work as a shop
assistant and a call girl throughout the
1940s. Yet because her combination
of sharp bob, glistening pearls and
cocktail dress came to epitomize 1920s
fashion in the modern era, her opulent
look is what she is remembered for
above all else. After all, as she once
said: “A well dressed woman, even
though her purse is painfully empty,
can conquer the world.”The story
behind
the picture
Top: aviators
are a staple for
Michael KorsMichael Kors
leather belt $228Considered by many to be the quintessential American
designer, Michael Kors’s clothes have long been synonymous
with jet-set luxury, with few Kors advertisements lacking
a yacht, plane, or helicopter. Now, thanks to an IPO in
December 2011, Kors inhabits this world himself, circling the
globe with a year-round tan and ubiquitous aviator
sunglasses. Indeed, his latest menswear collection is heavily
inspired by his love of travel.
Today, his men’s and women’s wear ranges – as well as
jewelry, accessories, watches, footwear, and fragrances – are
sold in hundreds of stores around the world (there were 774
as of June 2015). Ten seasons as a judge on the hit reality TV
show Project Runway made him internationally famous.
Angelina, Gwyneth, and Michelle are all fans. But, 36 years
after he founded his company, the core aesthetics of Michael
Kors’s design philosophy remain the same: laid back luxury
and a distinctly American sense of glamour.Charming and chatty, Kors has long been
known for personal appearances, and
meeting with customers was a crucial
element in his early success. He says that the
customer, male or female, remains his
ultimate barometer. Men and women
present many of the same challenges in
terms of design, he says, but above all “it’s
about knowing, listening and understanding
what your customers want. In the end, it
always come down to empathy and the
ability to put yourself in their shoes”.
Nowadays, menswear is on fire. A new
floor devoted solely to menswear in Kors’s
London flagship store on Regent Street –
complete with pool table – testifies to the
global trend. For the past few seasons, Kors
has become increasingly aware that men are
now far more concerned about how they look
and what their clothes and accessories say
about them. “Fewer men are wearing suits on
a daily basis,” he says, “so they need clothes that are laid back
but still polished and tailored.” Being a man helps, he says – so
the impetus for his designs is personal: “Clearly, I can’t wear it
all, and I shouldn’t wear it all, but I have to want to wear it all.”
Kors’s spring/summer 2017 collection has a distinctly
nautical theme, with program notes citing “maritime blues
from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean”. Men are advised that
if they wear only one bold color this spring and summer,
“make it blue”. For the show, Kors asked for the models to look
windswept and natural, “like they were just off a yacht after a
day of sailing and about to go out to dinner in Monaco”.
This was thanks, in no small part, to his love of the sea.
When not designing, Kors loves to travel “everywhere and
anywhere” as it provides “endless inspiration”. One of his
favorite places is Capri, where he loves to rent a boat and
“just spend the whole day making our way around the island,
stopping to soak up the sun, swim, eat vongole and drink
sangria. It’s divine”. Sailing boats and motor yachts have
equal appeal for him. There’s a time and an occasion for each,
he says, adding that both are “pretty fabulous”.
Kors says that the clothes this season are also about “being
ready to go from work to the weekend”. He’s convinced that
men now realize that “the best solution to getting dressed for
a busy life is to wear clothes and accessories that can work
in a million different situations”. This new collection, he
says, “is for a guy who is on the go, someone who goes to the
office and then jumps on a plane, or a boat, or a train”.
In keeping with the collection’s work-to-weekend
concept, the blazer has become an outerwear layer, using
unconventional fabrics to achieve maximum versatility for
the garment. A windbreaker-like fabric called paper poplinwas chosen because it is “very lightweight, but still gives
you a little bit of cover when it’s chilly. It’s a blazer but it has
the rustle of a windbreaker because of the material, and it
can work both ways”. Employing the term “hybrid”,
he explains that he intends to take the most important
elements of a man’s wardrobe and to merge them: “Whether
it’s a tailored trouser that suddenly becomes a denim trouser,
a trench coat that becomes a pullover, or a windbreaker
a blazer, it’s really for the guy who wants to have it all; to have
the best of both worlds.”
Unusually for menswear, bold patterns and polka dots –
with a nod to David Hockney – are infused throughout the
collection. When the weather gets warm, there’s something
about graphic geometry that “lends an added sense of polish
to a man’s look”, Kors insists. But for the ultimate onboard
polish, Kors really only has one piece of advice: “Never leave
home without your aviators.” He never does. BJust Kors
Menswear is changing, Michael Kors says. But
Harriet Mays Powell finds that his laid back,
all-American style is thankfully as cool as everWHEN
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yachtsThe men’s floor in
the flagship store
in London’s
Regent Street
Sunglasses
$275;
smartwatch
$350,
michaelkors.comThere are
clear nautical
influences in
Kors’s spring/
summer 2017
collectionMichael in his
beloved CapriAPRIL 2017440123456789ART
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