A NEW YORK TALE
Bellmore, Merrick, Freeport, Baldwin!” Michael Kors shrieks when he sees me in the corridor outside his conference room on 42nd Street. “Massapequa, Seaford, Wantagh!” I shout back, while his assistants stare at this goofy recitation. But it is not strange to the two of us. These are the stops on the Long Island Rail Road that the conductor bellows on the train to Manhattan, the golden land for Kors and I when we were growing up a few droopy suburban towns away from each other on Long Island, Manhattan.
“I thought New York was Oz,” Kors says of the city where he made his reputation, the place that gave birth to his enormous success, the town that he loves fiercely. This is the 40th year that Kors has been at the helm of his eponymous business, an enterprise built on his light-hearted reverence for meticulous, classic American clothes, an empire that now comprises clothing for men and women, shoes, handbags, watches, jewellery, eyewear, perfume and more.
The designer is at this point a beloved billionaire, a national treasure, recipient of countless honours, known to millions for his role as a judge on and his charitable work in the
