Michael Kors Fashion story

Michael Kors interest in fashion began at a young age. As a five-year-old, the future designer advised his mother on her wedding dress. The designer went on to open his own boutique, which he named Iron Butterfly, selling clothes he had customised or designed himself. Kors moved to New York in 1977 and enrolled in the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, though he left the school after nine months to take a job at Lothar’s, the trendsetting boutique on New York’s West 57th Street. 

He began his own label in earnest in 1981, with Lothar’s as his first customer; the first Michael Kors Collection runway show was held for the Autumn/Winter 1984 season. In its review, WWD judged it a “collection of haute, classic sportswear” and “elegant but minimal dressing.”