Escapism has quickly emerged as one of New York’s key themes for spring. Ralph Lauren took us to the seaside; Michael Kors prefers the desert. The garden outside his Terminal Warehouse location was planted with cacti and his models’ cheeks were deeply sunkissed. “The eye has to travel, Mrs. Vreeland was right,” Kors said, explaining that wanderlust had taken him and his husband to Morocco, Norway, and points west in the US over the summer. “It’s nature that knocks us out.”
Of course, Kors is a city boy through and through, so the idea was to meld the elegance and sophistication he’s known for with a looser, freer sensibility. Think: a tailored jacket with sheer sarouel pants or possibly a sarong; blazers with the sleeves hacked off and long shorts in place of trousers; and all sorts of soft fabrics in sunset colors that look lifted from this trip to Utah, or from Halston—the American design pioneer loved a pastel, and the relaxed shapes that Kors was drawn to here.
Aesthetics weren’t his only motivation this season. As summer temperatures rise with global warming, fewer of us need or want heavy suiting. Skin-tight clothes—Kors called them “shrinkwrapped”—don’t work when the humidity spikes either. Breezy, floaty silhouettes that move rather than cling are a smart way to beat the heat. These took the form of softly draped wool crepe dresses; tops and skirts cut like flags, away from the body; and silk scarf separates. A perforated suede trench? Kors was quick to acknowledge that it’s not much use in the monsoons that have become all too frequent, but let a guy have a little fun, won’t you?
At a preview, Kors reflected on the loss of Giorgio Armani, who died last week. “I would say from 18 to 40, I bought an Armani jacket every year. Especially when I was young, I never wanted to feel done up. For me, you put on one of those jackets, and you’d be like, oh yeah, I feel like I’m in a hoodie.” Kors’s collection for spring had its own kind of ineffable ease.
