New York celebrates 45 years of Michael Kors with special runway event

New York celebrates 45 years of Michael Kors with a special runway event at Lincoln Center, set within the iconic Metropolitan Opera — one of the city’s symbolic landmarks, which more than any other place has defined the designer’s identity.

The anniversary is significant, and the designer — who marked the brand’s 40th anniversary quietly due to the Covid lockdown — approaches it with irony and pride.

“It’s crazy to think that 45 years have gone by,” he said while presenting the new collection, which closed with another regal fashion icon, Christy Turlington, who as a teenager appeared in Michael’s first advertising campaign, walking among the red velvet and gold of the world-famous opera house, CE Report quotes ANSA.

“New York Chic” is the theme of the upcoming fall-winter season, a tribute to the city renowned for its contrasts.

Kors sees in the metropolis — whose First Lady, Rama Duwaji, appears on his best-dressed list — the perfect synthesis of grit and glamour.

The collection translates this dualism, the constant tension between opposites — yin and yang — that has accompanied the designer’s entire career in a city capable of continually reinventing itself. Rama is not the only muse of the new collection: on Kors’ mood board is also Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, whose tragic love story with John F. Kennedy Jr. is now the focus of a series on Hulu, as well as Maria Callas, “the girl from Queens who became the greatest diva in the world.”

The choice of the Met Opera is therefore no coincidence: the famed theater — once home to Luciano Pavarotti — has faced financial difficulties in recent years and is seeking to reinvent itself without losing its soul. Resilience becomes the key to a collection that looks to the past without nostalgia, featuring classic pieces such as the white shirt, the peacoat, the camel coat, gray trousers and the little black dress, reinvented with bias cuts, delicate draping and fluid layering, along with soft nappa gloves above the elbow, as once worn to attend operas by Giuseppe Verdi or Giacomo Puccini.

Eveningwear follows no single code: it can be a long gown, a tailored suit or a men’s shirt worn effortlessly. Trousers transform with integrated trains, boyfriend shirts gain theatrical flair with oversized cuffs, while hand-embroidered cocktail dresses and flowing skirts balance elegance and practicality.

The show was accompanied by an original score by composer Sebastien Perrin, designed to echo the Met Opera’s orchestral atmosphere, blending excerpts from Romeo and Juliet by Sergei Prokofiev and the theme from Swan Lake by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky with “Chandelier” by Sia and “Diamonds” by Rihanna.

In the front row sat a constellation of stars and friends of the brand: from Uma Thurman to Dakota Fanning, from Mary J. Blige to Martha Stewart.

Forty-five years after the beginning of his journey, Kors still visits stores, listens to customers and seeks new ideas. Curiosity, he says, is the secret to staying enthusiastic.