Background

Ethnicity: Mr. Kors' mother is Jewish and his father was of Swedish descent.

Mr. Kors was born Karl Anderson, Jr. on Long Island, New York, United States, on August 9, 1959, and grew up in Merrick, New York. His parents are Joan Hamburger, a former model, and her first husband, Karl Anderson Sr., a college student. Kors' biological parents split when he was quite young. His mother remarried Bill Kors when he was five, and his surname was changed to Kors. His mother told him that he could choose a new first name as well; subsequently he renamed himself Michael David Kors.

Education

Kors graduated from John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore, New York. He began designing clothes at the age of 19. In 1977, he enrolled at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. However, he dropped out after only nine months.

Career

Mr. Kors began working in 1978 at Lothar’s Boutique as a buyer, display director, and designer. His designs won him notice, and in 1981 he was able to establish his own company, Michael Kors Inc., with a line of women’s wear sold in major department stores and a couture line. His designs were consistently praised for their beauty and their flawlessness, and as the years went on, he added more lines, including a men’s collection, bridge (lower-priced) lines, fragrances, and, later, lines of accessories that included handbags, shoes, belts, leather goods, eyeglasses, and watches. The 1984 saw his first eponymous catwalk show.

In 1993, during a downturn in the American economy, Michael Kors’ company filed for bankruptcy protection. The firm emerged from restructuring in short order, however, and soon resumed its upward trajectory. After getting back on his feet, Kors launched KORS Michael Kors, a lower-priced line. In addition to designing for his own house, Mr. Kors in 1997 began to design a women’s ready-to-wear collection for the French fashion label Céline, reviving the brand and turning around its fortune and public image with his progressive, accessory-driven collections, and he went on to serve (1999-2003) as the label’s creative director. 1999 saw LVMH buy a 33 per cent stake in Michael Kors' business and promoted him from designer to creative director at Céline.

He remained at Céline until 2003 when he left to concentrate wholly on his growing eponymous empire. In 2003, Sportswear Holdings Limited acquired an estimated 85 per cent stake in Michael Kors for $100m (approximately £63,355,000), buying out the shares formerly held by LVMH, Onward Kashiyama, and Mr. Kors' long-time business partner, John Orchulli.

In 2004 Mr. Kors launched his diffusion line MICHAEL Michael Kors, which offers lower-priced alternatives to his main line. The same year the cable television channel Bravo asked Kors to serve, along with model Heidi Klum and designer Tim Gunn, as a judge on a new reality TV show, Project Runway, in which amateur fashion designers would compete with each other in a progressive-elimination format. Though Kors was initially reluctant, he became popular among fans of the show for his wit and his straightforward critiques, and he continued his role on the show in its subsequent seasons. The program made Mr. Kors himself a star and broadened the visibility of his design imprimatur. In 2012, Michael Kors announced that he would be retiring from Project Runway. By that time, the series had garnered several Emmy Award nominations, among other honors.

Achievements

• 

  Michael Kors is celebrated for his sports-luxe aesthetic, his tireless charity work and his outgoing personality. Countless celebrities wear his garments, and U.S. first lady Michelle Obama posed in a Michael Kors dress for her first official portrait. With new lines constantly in production and more customers drawn in by his Project Runway appearances, Mr. Kors' fashion empire continues to grow.
  
  He has collected many accolades throughout his career including: CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year, 1999; CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year, 2003; the Oliver R. Grace Award for Distinguished Service in Advancing Cancer Research, 2010; the Fragrance Foundation's FiFi Award for Lifetime Achievement, 2010; and the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award from the CFDA, 2010. He was the youngest ever recipient of the latter.

Works

More photos

• design

  • Michael Kors, Fall collection

  • Michael Kors, Fall collection

  • Michael Kors fashion illustration

  • Michael Kors for Michelle Obama's Dress Sketch

  • Sketch by Michael Kors

  • Dress for Christina Aguilara

  • A sketch from Michael Kors' Fall collection

Views

Quotations: "For me, true luxury can be caviar or a day with no meetings, no appointments and no schedule."

"My legacy would be that you don't have to give up anything. You can be chic but have a sense of humor, you can be sexy but comfortable, you can be timeless but fresh."

"I think the older I get, the more I realize that the ultimate luxury is time."

"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. I not only enjoy it, I think, how do you design things that are applicable to life - unless you live it?"

"Clothes are like a good meal, a good movie, great pieces of music."

"A man in a well tailored suit will always shine brighter than a guy in an off-the-rack suit."

"The biggest lesson that I've learned is that fashion is this tightrope where you have to be consistent but inconsistent. You need the connective thread but at the same time you need a sense of surprise."

"Because of what's going on with the economy, I think women are realizing that maybe they don't need a closet full of clothes. They just need the right clothes."

"When you try on something, you have to ask yourself, 'How many ways could I wear this? Could I wear it to work? To dinner or drinks? Will it span the seasons' If you have to think too hard about those questions, then skip it."

"I think a lot of women have too many mini skirts in their closets."

Membership

• Council Fashion Designers of America , United States

Interests

• theatre, film, travel

Connections

Just a few weeks after gay marriage became legal in New York, Michael Kors married his longtime partner Lance La Pere, vice president of Michael Kors Women's Design in August 2011. The pair had first met in 1990 when La Pere was an intern at the company.

Father:

Karl Anderson Sr.

Mother:

Joan Hamburger

husband:

Lance La Pere

References

• Michael Kors: The Quick Handbook to Fashion, Fame, and Family
• Vogue Patterns February/March 2009 Anne Klein, Michael Kors, Tom and Linda Pratt