My Mom & Me: Michael Kors Pays Tribute to Joan Kors
My mother Joan liked to say that nothing stays the same, which I always remember when things in fashion, or the world at large, inevitably change. It’s one of the many reasons I love New York. How boring it would be if everything stayed the same forever. On the first anniversary of her passing, I’m thankful for what she did for me on all my boyhood trips from Long Island to the Emerald City, showing me everything that was new and exciting, from Broadway to Madison Avenue.
When I was five she took me to see Ethel Merman in Annie Get Your Gun, which ignited a love for the theater that inspires me still. Like all stylish people, she had a great sense of self, but she was unafraid to shift with the times. From Capri pants to miniskirts, from hip-huggers to hot pants, from power suits to ’90s minimalism, she was constantly curious. Invariably, you saw her before you saw what she was wearing.
I was her shopping buddy and fashion stylist from as early as I can remember. She listened to my opinion about everything from wallpaper and paint colors to the wedding dress she wore when she remarried. She understood that I was definitely not the average kid. At the age of six I was more excited to eat sukiyaki sitting in a tatami room than go to a theme park. Shopping for back-to-school clothes was the highlight of the year. I would be decked out in heavy Shetland sweaters and corduroys from Saks even if it was 85 degrees out.
I remember a jaunt to Manhattan one year when, after some uptown shopping, all I wanted to do was go to Greenwich Village so I could mix in some love beads and peace sign necklaces. Not only did she take me down to the Village, she encouraged me to always be myself.
My fashion shows are semiannual celebrations of what I love, and my mother was always there to celebrate with me. She’d greet people at the door, hang out with the models backstage, rifle through the racks and study every look. One of the greatest compliments she gave me was after a show I did in the late ’80s. All the skirts were thigh-high short, and she wore only trousers at that point. The minute the show was over, she told me that even though she couldn’t wear most of what we showed, it filled her with great desire. “Isn’t that the trick? That you want to wear it all?” She was one of a kind.
This story appears in the September 2024 issue of Town & Country, with the headline "No Place Like Home." SUBSCRIBE NOW
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