Michael Kors

Michael Kors was born Karl Anderson Jr in 1959 on Long Island, New York, and took his stepfather's surname as a child. He enrolled at the Fashion Institute of Technology but left after a short time to work at Lothar's, a boutique on 57th Street opposite Bergdorf Goodman, where he started on the shop floor and moved into designing and merchandising. In 1981 he launched his own womenswear label, which Bergdorf Goodman stocked.

His aesthetic was set early and has barely wavered: clean, practical American sportswear with a glamorous edge, camel coats, cashmere, aviator sunglasses and a certain jet-set ease. He was named the CFDA's womenswear designer of the year in 1999, and from 1997 to 2004 he was also the first women's ready-to-wear designer at Celine in Paris, where his accessories and collections helped establish the house as a fashion name.

The business had a difficult period in the early 1990s, but grew strongly after investment from the entrepreneurs Silas Chou and Lawrence Stroll and a lower-priced MICHAEL Michael Kors line, which made handbags the engine of the company. Kors himself became a household name as a judge on the television competition Project Runway from 2004 to 2012. Michael Kors Holdings floated on the New York Stock Exchange in December 2011 in one of the most successful fashion listings of its time, and its logo bags and watches became ubiquitous in malls and airports around the world.

Flush with cash, the company bought the London shoemaker Jimmy Choo in 2017 and the Italian house Versace in 2018, and in January 2019 renamed itself Capri Holdings. A planned sale of Capri to Tapestry, the owner of Coach, was blocked in 2024 by a US court on competition grounds. In 2025 Capri sold Versace to the Prada Group, completing the sale in December, to concentrate on Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo.

Kors, who stepped back from Capri's board in later years, remains chief creative officer of his label and presents its collections in New York. In 2026 he marked 45 years in business with a runway show at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, a career that has stayed faithful to the polished, travel-ready American wardrobe he set out to make in 1981.