“Oh my God, they transformed this place,” Mindy Kaling said as she walked into Los Angeles icon Canter’s Deli. Naturally, Michael Kors took over the place for the uber-low dinner party hosted by Spago on Tuesday night.
“I don’t think I’ve been here in the daylight,” he said of the spot, beloved for nearly 100 years for its pastrami and since the ’60s for its after-hours Kibitz Room, which has featured Joni Mitchell, Slash, the Bar. The Wallflowers, Red Hot Chili Peppers and more took the stage and DJ Kitty Ca$h kept the party going on Tuesday.
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“This is my vibe,” said Olivia Wilde, who looked like Michael Kors in a white tank top, tight skirt and double leather belt.
Wolfgang Puck smoked salmon pizza, wagyu beef and MKC black and white cookies – with friends new and old spanning the designer’s 40-year love affair with Los Angeles, including Kerry Washington, Gabrielle Union-Wade, Dwyane Wade, Marisa Tomei, Quinta Brunson and Shailene Woodley – and to celebrate Kors’ return to Rodeo Drive with a new store opening last month.
“You bring life to what I do,” Kors said as he toasted his guests and described the one-night-only Canter/Spago blend. “This is Los Angeles, this is a hot dog in an evening dress.”
The designer, as always, fascinated everyone; These included upstarts Alexandra Shipp, Kaitlyn Dever, Zoey Deutch and writer/actress Rose Gilroy, whose mother Rene Russo starred in the 1999 version of “The Thomas Crown Affair.” Michael Kors instead of Celine.
“Your mother said to me, ‘I’m finally making a movie where I can be really beautiful.’ “I’ve always avoided doing movies where I would be perceived as a model,” Kors told Gilroy, adding that one of his VIP clients was so impressed by Russo’s role that he ordered everything she wore on screen and dyed her hair that way. Like her.
Although Kors is synonymous with New York City, both his parents and grandparents lived in Los Angeles for years. He also credits Los Angeles for helping him hone his aesthetic as a designer, he said over iced tea at the Polo Lounge on Tuesday morning, where he wore jeans and a “Summerland” T-shirt from the Montecito, Calif., suburb he frequents. She spends time in August.
High-low LA View
“I think I remember back in the ’80s when I didn’t have my own retail stores, and I was probably doing a trunk show here at Neiman Marcus, and every woman would walk in and look at a great jacket or a great coat or a great pair of sneakers. She put on the shirt and said, ‘I love it, but “If it doesn’t work with jeans, I won’t do it,” he said.
“Everyone is focused on New York in the American way, but the truth is California is where the rules are broken. This is where people wear sneakers with dresses. This is the global epicenter of high-low.…When we’re going to have this dinner, it’s like, ‘What are the best experiences in Los Angeles?’ I asked.”
Kors is an enthusiastic supporter of great experiences in every city, whether it’s Broadway, Sardi’s, Tavern on the Green and EAT in New York, where she draws inspiration and hosts shows and events, or Lucy’s El Adobe, Pink’s and Canter’s in Los Angeles. He often took his late mother, Joan Kors, with him.
“I was trying to explain to my team how the Kibitz Room became this weird, punk rock, post-club venue, and the next day you’d see walkers going to get cookies,” Kors said. Fairfax Boulevard in a neighborhood known locally as Los Angeles’ bagel belt. “And when you think about Spago, Vanity Fair Oscar parties, Wolfgang Puck and Swifty Lazar… I thought if we could combine those two, that was the high-low of Los Angeles.”
Over the years, the Hollywood jet set, Cher, Lauren Bacall and Tony Duquette’s “Dawnridge” have been among the Los Angeles inspirations for Kors collections. And still feverish, he heads straight off the plane Monday night to have dinner at The Georgian Hotel, the newly revitalized Art Deco gem in Santa Monica. (In addition to furniture shopping, the John Waters exhibition at the Academy Museum is also on the to-do list.)
“I can only work on mood boards at the Beverly Hills Hotel, same goes for the Venice and the Sunset Strip,” he said. “My first account in Los Angeles was a store on Rodeo Drive called Lina Lee and Judith Krantz ‘Scruples,’ with ceiling fans and peacock chairs. Then we sold Maxfield early. I love the glitz of Hollywood. I love beach culture. I love the highs and the lows… I also love the idea of how age-related rules are broken. You know, it used to be like: No, you can’t wear that if you’re that age… Never in Los Angeles. “You have a 20-year-old child dressed like a doyen, and a 60-year-old child dressed like a teenager.”
Ghosts of Hollywood
Sitting in a booth under a heat lamp on the Pink Palace’s lush veranda, Kors remembered one of the first celebrities to appear at the Beverly Hills Hotel while having lunch poolside with her grandparents. “I see this incredibly elegant woman with a very old Hollywood man dressed to his nines, wearing jewelry, hair done, and a pocket square and an ascot. “Everybody’s wearing swimsuits,” she said. “It was Cyd Charisse and her husband Tony Martin. They were sitting around playing cards.”
She also loves Barney’s Beanery, which has just been discovered by Generation Z and was the last place Janis Joplin visited before her death. “It’s like a time capsule.”
Venice? “I remember when this first became an artists’ space.…Everyone comes together [Jean-Michel] New York and Basquiat but you gotta remember, Larry [Gagosian] “That’s where I started it all,” he said, noting that the artist produced much of his early work in Los Angeles and that the budding art dealer opened his first gallery — a poster shop — in Westwood. “There are so many layers here that I don’t know if everyone sees it. You get the dirt and the shine, and the nice thing is that Los Angeles always has both.
Kors opened its first store on Rodeo Drive in 2004; It closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the new spot is smaller and closer to Wilshire. “The street feels alive again,” he said of the rodeo, noting that the store is geared toward dressing tourists, locals and celebrities.
Celebrity Factor
“They bring it to life in a way that makes people who are not in the public eye look at a particular celebrity and say, ‘Oh, I kind of identify with him.’ I relate to it. If they could wear it, maybe I could too,’” Kors said. “For example, Olivia Wilde. Of course, I’m a huge fan of his incredible talent. But he will try different things. We made short shorts, we opened the runway show with them, and a lot of people over 30 were saying they couldn’t wear them. But seeing Olivia as an adult wearing this dress brings it to life.”
Kors is, of course, a celebrity himself; after 10 seasons of “Project Runway,” which filmed in New York with the first season in Los Angeles.
Suddenly everyone assumed he would write his own script, a story about his life. But no, at least not yet. First, the business is in a delicate situation, with the Federal Trade Commission suing to block Tapestry Inc. from acquiring Kors’ parent company, Capri Holdings, for $8.5 billion. fashion slowdown
It’s been a long time since the days of packing and shipping boxes or scribbling MK logos in a school notebook. “Of course we hope that things will progress, improve and change. And it’s all part of the process.… Did I ever really think that I would walk down the street in Paris, that I would walk down the street in Tokyo, and we would be there? No. But you’re in fashion, so you better be ready for what’s going to change.”
What sells well now? “The duality is about what happened in the spring. An explosion of femininity with all that lace or edgy cuts. Nobody cares about the middle.”
Welcome to the world.
“Now more than ever you have to be thoughtful as a designer. The consumer looks at it and says, ‘I don’t want to wear this just once.’ I want it to have versatility. ‘It better transcend all seasons, with the weather.’ What works and resonates is the stuff that ticks all those boxes. And of course, if it’s very pragmatic, everyone says, “I want joy.” And if it’s too cheerful, it’s a one-off. “After 43 years, I know that when the world at large becomes shaky, you have to stay the course,” he said. “It’s up to me, and designers in general, to make things that make you feel great when you wear something, but don’t make you feel stupid when you spend the money.”
Launch Gallery: Olivia Wilde, Kerry Washington and Gabrielle Union Dine with Michael Kors in Los Angeles
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