‘Being ridiculous is not sexy’: Michael Kors wants to restore some sanity to the red carpet

Fashion designer says when the world is this crazy, you need to feel ‘confident and comfortable’ in your clothes. One celebrity who was very much not on Michael Kors’ moodboard for his New York fashion week show was Bianca Censori, who recently caused uproar with a near-naked appearance at the Grammys with her husband, Kanye West. “I’m not going to mention names,” said the designer, while making the reference quite clear. “Something we saw on the red carpet recently – that’s not sexy. Being ridiculous isn’t sexy.”.

Kors, who used to love a revealing gown, says naked dressing “is boring now. I grew up infatuated with Cher. I would be waiting to see what she wore, how naked she could be, how amazing she could look”. Only last year he dressed the country singer Kelsea Ballerini for the Met Gala in a daring nude mesh gown embroidered with strategic silk rose buds, inspired by the scene in the film American Beauty in which Mena Suvari lies in a bathtub, covered only by petals.

But 2025 “is crazy enough already”, he said before his show. “Every five minutes there’s a news alert. When the world is this crazy, you need to feel confident and comfortable. What has happened in LA is apocalyptic, and the idea of stepping on to a red carpet in a crazy gown just now feels out of step.”. Fashion has gotten “preposterous”, he added. “Everyone wears too much make up and has too much hair. We need to calm down.”.

Those who did make it on to Kors’ moodboard: Uma Thurman in the 1990s in an oversized black coat, Sharon Stone in a mannish check blazer in 2000, Lauren Hutton in a trenchcoat in the 1970s. On the catwalk, this spirit was channelled into loose dresses with trailing ties – “my woman lives in the city, her clothes should have movement when she walks. A little something to catch the wind” – and evening blazers in bias-cut black silk.

No boning, no corsets, no stilettos. “There’s not a tight dress in the whole collection,” Kors noted. “That feels like a costume from another time.”. Kors is a vocal and high-profile Democrat, who contributed more than $300,000 (£241,000) to Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. But asked for his thoughts on Melania Trump, who often wears his label, he rowed back to neutrality. He was careful to make it clear that the first lady buys his clothes, rather than being given or loaned them. “She has shopped in our store on Madison Avenue for many years. I often see her wearing pieces she has owned for a long time,” he said. “Listen, the reality is, you are talking about a woman who wears clothes well.”.

Minimalism is not to Kors’ taste. “I like beautiful lines, but with warmth. I like clothes that look delicious,” he said. Looks were drenched in single shades of aubergine, chocolate brown and bottle green. His customers have an urban palette, Kors believes, and while they say they want to wear colour, they don’t shell out for anything that strays too far from black. The mood was high-end comfort dressing: coats with shearling-lined pockets for warmth, soft leather boots that slouched and wrinkled just so, instead of shiny riding boot styles.

Kors, a beloved character in the Manhattan fashion world, took his catwalk bow to rapturous applause as always. But his brand is in trouble, suffering a 12% decline in sales last quarter. The Capri conglomerate which owns Michael Kors has been left stranded after an attempted merger with the larger Tapestry group, owner of Coach, was blocked by the US Federal Trade Commission in November. The merger would have created an American luxury conglomerate able to compete with the European giants, putting Kors on a surer footing.