Michael Kors

Michael Kors is an American fashion house founded by the designer of the same name in New York City in 1981 [2]. It produces ready-to-wear, accessories, footwear, watches, jewellery, eyewear and a full line of fragrance products, positioned at the luxury end of the market. In beauty retail the brand appears for its fragrance range; those scents are made under license rather than in-house, and the licensee has changed three times since the first Michael Kors perfume appeared in 2000.

The label operates under Capri Holdings Limited, a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CPRI [3]. The fashion house and its fragrance line remain active, with new scents released through 2024 and 2025 under the current licensing arrangement [7].

Michael Kors launched his eponymous women's label in 1981, at the age of 21, with an 18-piece resort collection of white crepe de chine dresses and streamlined leather separates [4]. The line was first sold at the New York department stores Bergdorf Goodman and, according to The Perfume Society, marked the start of a brand built around a jet-set, American sportswear sensibility. Kors had enrolled at the Fashion Institute of Technology in 1977 but left after nine months.

The early company did not have a smooth start: it was forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1993 and relaunched in 1997 with a lower-priced line. A menswear collection followed in 2002, and the more accessibly priced MICHAEL Michael Kors line launched in 2004.

The brand expanded steadily in the 2000s and went public in 2011, when Michael Kors Holdings held its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange [2]. Two large acquisitions followed. In 2017 the company bought the British shoe and accessories house Jimmy Choo for £897 million [3]. In 2018 it acquired the Italian house Versace in a deal valued at roughly 2.1 billion US dollars [3].

The Versace purchase prompted a corporate rebrand. After the deal closed in October 2018, the parent company changed its name from Michael Kors Holdings Limited to Capri Holdings; the legal renaming took effect on January 2, 2019 [3]. Versace was later sold to Prada in April 2025 for 1.25 billion euros.

The Michael Kors label is owned by Capri Holdings Limited, the group that also owns Jimmy Choo. Capri Holdings is incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, with executive offices in London and operational offices in New York City [3]. John D. Idol serves as the group's chairman and chief executive.

The company describes the Michael Kors brand as "a byword for high quality elegance" offering "luxury styles that last a lifetime," and presents the designer's approach as combining current trends with a timeless aesthetic. For fragrance, Kors has framed the line around what he called the brand's DNA — "Sporty, Sexy and Glam" — and, as quoted by The Perfume Society, has spoken of scent as "transporting" and able to evoke a particular place or mood. The collection, in that account, aims to capture a jet-set spirit through its scents and packaging.

The first Michael Kors fragrance, a women's scent, was launched in 2000 in collaboration with LVMH; a men's fragrance followed in 2001 [4]. The Perfume Society describes the debut as a "contemporary, chic classic." Later releases under subsequent licensees included Island Michael Kors, Sexy Amber, Glam Jasmine, Sexy Sunset and Wonderlust.

Michael Kors fragrances are produced under license; the fashion house does not manufacture its own scents. The license has moved three times. The original launches (2000–2003) were handled through LVMH's American Designer Fragrances division. In 2003 the license passed to The Estée Lauder Companies, under its Aramis and Designer Fragrances division [4], which held it until that division wound down and the agreement concluded in 2023. In September 2021 Capri Holdings announced a 15-year exclusive worldwide fragrance license with the Italian maker EuroItalia S.R.L., which also produces Versace scents [6]. The first fragrances under the EuroItalia deal — Michael Kors Pour Femme and Michael Kors Pour Homme — launched in Italy in May 2022, ahead of a global rollout, with Irina Shayk and Jon Kortajarena as their faces [6].

The designer Michael Kors has received several awards from the Council of Fashion Designers of America: Womenswear Designer of the Year in 1999, Menswear Designer of the Year in 2003, and a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 [4].

The brand is active. It is part of Capri Holdings, a publicly traded luxury group, and its fragrance line continues to release new products. The fragrance database Fragrantica lists 63 Michael Kors perfumes, the newest dating from 2025, reflecting ongoing launches under the EuroItalia license [7].