Brand Watch: Michael Kors

DESCRIBING Michael Kors as an actor turned designer is misleading, if not entirely inaccurate.

130330 Kors

DESCRIBING Michael Kors as an actor turned designer is misleading, if not entirely inaccurate.

DESCRIBING Michael Kors as an actor turned designer is misleading, if not entirely inaccurate. As a child on Long Island, the sandy-haired Kors was cast in commercials for Lucky Charms and freeze-dried apples, but before his 14th birthday he turned his back on the camera to pursue a career in design.

In the 1970s, he attended New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, but didn't stay long, jumping when the opportunity to design the in-house collection for Lothar's boutique came up. Kors was only 19, but his fresh and streamlined approach to basics, with playful touches to save them from being branded boring, caught the eye of Bergdorf Goodman fashion executive Dawn Mello.

Following a tap on the window at Lothar's, Mello invited Kors to present his own collection to her; the only problem was the designer hadn't created one yet.

From his Greenwich Village apartment, Kors furiously created a collection and in 1981 the label was born, with Mello stocking the label at Bergdorf's. For the next decade, the media savvy Kors was a Vogue regular, but due to the recession he filed for bankruptcy protection in 1993.

You can't keep a good child-actor turned designer down and Kors quickly launched a diffusion line, Kors Michael Kors, and accepted an offer to become creative director of Celine.

Kors life-changing moment came with a return to the cameras. In December 2004, he was approached to join supermodel Heidi Klum on a reality TV show called Project Runway. Kors impressed audiences with his sharp whit and commercial and creative expertise.

With newfound fame, the Kors business grew, expanding into Asia and finding a new sector of the market

Kors has never strayed from his understated aesthetic and continues to show at New York Fashion Week.

Last year, Kors stepped down from Project Runway, which is understandable following his recent business successes. Since the public offering of Michael Kors in 2011, the designer has sold about $700 million of the company's stock.

The money continues to roll in, with the brand now opening stores in Australia.

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