Michael Kors is a multinational luxury fashion holding company that was founded in 1981 by Michael Kors. Today, the company is known as Capri Holdings Limited, and it is incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. They sell luxury shoes, clothes, handbags, and other accessories such as watches and jewelry. Since the company was established, it has been a popular fashion trend among women. And as of 2015, Michael Kors has over 550 stands along with boutiques and 1500 in-store boutiques all across the world. In this article, we are going to talk about the story of Michael Kors’ founder and its company.
Personal Life of Michael Kors
Kors was born as Karl Anderson Jr. in Long Island, New York. His parents are Joan Hamburger, who is a former model and Karl Anderson Sr. But when he was just five years old, Kors’ mother married Bill Kors, and that’s why he changed his surname to Kors. Aside from that, his mother told him that he could choose a new first name as well, and he decided to rename himself, Michael David Kors.
Michael Kors’ passion for fashion started at a very young age. His mother taught that his interest in fashion might have been partly caused by his exposure to the industry because of her modeling career. In fact, Michael Kors designed his mother’s wedding dress for her second marriage when he was just five years old. When he became a teenager, Michael Kors started to design clothes and selling them in his parent’s basement. He named his clothing line the Iron Butterfly.
In 1977, Kors enrolled at the Fashion Institute of Technology, but he dropped out after nine months, and he took a job at a boutique named Lothar’s. He first started as the store’s salesperson, and he went on to become its visual display head and designer. Not long after that, his talents were recognized by Dawn Mello, and she asked Kors if he could show his collection to Bergdorf Goodman’s buyers.
The Beginning of His Own Label
After he showcased his collection, he launched his Michael Kors women’s clothing line at Bergdorf Goodman in 1981. Two years after, the company launched the KORS Michael Kors as an official license. In 1993, Bergdorf Goodman filed for bankruptcy, which caused their closure. That’s why the KORS line was put on hold. Michael Kors then decided to design for other labels before he relaunched in 1997 with a lower-priced clothing line. In that same year, Kors was hired by French house Celine to develop women’s ready-to-wear designer clothes
In 2002, Kors introduced his menswear line, and the next year, he decided to leave Celine to concentrate on his own brand via a holding company named Michael Kors Holdings Ltd. The company was relaunched with a $100 million investment from a Canadian fashion investor named Lawrence Stroll and his partner Silas Chou who was the person that purchased Tommy Hilfiger in 1989.
In 2004, The MICHAEL Michael Kors was launched, and it now included a line of women’s handbags, shoes, and ready-to-wear clothes. In 2011, Chou and Stroll decided to make Michael Kors Holding Ltd public in the New York Stock Exchange. This move made them and even Michael Kors himself billionaires.
Celebrities such as Olivia Wilde, Kate Middleton, Angelina Jolie, Kate Hudson, Jennifer Lopez, Taylor Swift, Heidi Klum, Hillary Clinton, and Michelle Obama have all worn a dress done by Michael Kors. In fact, Michelle Obama wore a black sleeveless dress from Michael Kors on her first-ever official portrait as the First Lady of the United States. In 2015, she once again wore a Michael Kors dress during the State of the Union Address. Michael Kors also designed several outfits for actresses in different films such as Rene Russo in the Thomas Crown Affair, and Gwyneth Paltrow in the movie Possession. Alicia Keys also wore a Michael Kors dress when she performed at Barack Obama’s inaugural ball in 2013.
In 2014, Forbes wrote that Michael Kors had reached a personal fortune of $1 Billion, and MKH Ltd also made Lawrence Stroll and Silas Chou billionaires.
Check out all these amazing luxury fashion brands.