Michael Kors takes his one-man show — glamorous fashions, zingy one-liners, crazed fans and all — on the road.“Here, take a fajita.” Michael Kors spins the lazy Susan like it’s the Wheel of Fortune so that a starchy circle lands in front of me. “Add a little bit of onion to it. Some hoisin. Put a little cucumber on that duck skin — turn it into a dietetic delight!” The 55-year-old American designer arrived in Shanghai from New York yesterday and, despite a bit of jet lag, he’s in good spirits. He’s currently on the wave half of the wall-and-wave mentality he’s adopted over a lifetime of travel. “You hit a wall,” he says, pantomiming the impact, and moving into a fluid, rolling-with-the-homies arm motion. “After that, you ride the wave.” This is Kors’s first trip to the city, where he’s come to open a glistening, two-story flagship. He will also host a thousand style-savvy guests (including the actors Camilla Belle, Freida Pinto and Hilary Swank, who have been flown in for the occasion) at his label’s first-ever hyper-immersive, multimedia runway show in an airplane hangar an hour’s drive away. But right now, he’s focused on food. Picking at another dish, he says, “Ooh, I love crystal shrimp!” His smile widens the way it does when he’s about to crack a joke. “You know her, right? The drag queen from Nashville? She’s friends with Won Ton Consommé!”

迈克·科尔斯(Michael Kors)带着自己的独角秀——迷人的时装、活泼的俏皮话和疯狂的粉丝等——上路了。“来，尝尝墨西哥肉卷。”迈克·科尔斯转动餐桌转盘，就像在转动幸运轮，让一盘面皮停在我面前。“往面皮上放点葱丝。再放点海鲜酱。再加点鸭皮和小黄瓜条，把它变成无与伦比的美味！”这位55岁的美国设计师昨天从纽约飞到上海，尽管有时差，但他精神很好。他每次旅行都保持冲浪般的心态，目前他处于浪尖滑行的阶段。“你先被一个大浪冲击，”他一边说一边模仿被大浪冲击的样子，然后胳膊做出和伙伴们一起翻滚的流畅动作。“然后，你就能在那个浪上滑行了。”这是科尔斯第一次来上海，他来这里是为自己闪亮的两层旗舰店开幕。他还将在离店一小时车程的一个飞机库里举办该品牌的首次超级浸入式多媒体时装秀，届时一千名时尚名流（包括演员卡米拉·贝尔[Camilla Belle]、芙蕾达·平托[Freida Pinto]和希拉里·斯旺克[Hilary Swank]，他们将为此飞到上海）将到场。但是眼下，他的注意力集中在食物上。他拿起另一种食物，说道，“哦！我超爱水晶虾！”他打算开玩笑时就会笑得特别灿烂，“你认识她吧？她是来自纳什维尔的变装皇后，和清汤馄饨是好朋友！”
He shoots a look at his husband and business partner, Lance LePere, who met Kors while interning at his Paris office. “What color are the walls, Lance?” Scanning the empty, ornate main room of the Dragon Phoenix restaurant, LePere says, “Um … Ladurée?” Kors shakes his head. “You must be exhausted. I say it’s Claridge’s.” Kors raises an eyebrow as if he’s just taught everyone an important lesson on globalization. “The world is connected,” he says. “Ladurée turned into Claridge’s, which is really Tiffany, and Audrey Hepburn just wafted by!”It’s this limitless reserve of campy one-liners that has made Kors such a pleasure to watch for 10 seasons as a judge on the fashion competition series “Project Runway,” which helped propel his business into a billion-dollar empire. The show is also why, on the other side of the world, he can’t cross the street without running into a fan — or a knockoff of one of his coveted handbags.
他瞟了丈夫、商业伙伴朗斯·勒皮埃(Lance LePere)一眼。勒皮埃是在科尔斯的巴黎办公室实习时与他相识的。“墙壁是什么颜色，朗斯？”勒皮埃看了看龙凤餐厅空旷华丽的大厅，说道，“嗯……像拉杜丽甜品店(Ladurée)？”科尔斯摇了摇头。“你一定是累了。我觉得它更像克拉里奇酒店[Claridge’s]。”科尔斯扬起一个眉毛，好像他刚给所有人上了关于全球化的重要一课。“拉杜丽变克拉里奇，它实际上是蒂芙尼(Tiffany)，奥黛丽·赫本(Audrey Hepburn)刚刚轻轻飘过！”正是这些无穷无尽的滑稽的俏皮话让科尔斯在担任时装竞赛节目“天桥风云”(Project Runway)十季评委时深受喜爱，在这个节目的推动下，他的公司变成了十亿美元的帝国。这个节目也让他在地球的另一端过马路时总能碰上粉丝，或者看到他设计的那些令人垂涎的手袋的仿制品。
After dinner, while exploring the Bund, a city-center boardwalk surrounded by oddly shaped skyscrapers with bright lights casting rainbows along the Huangpu River, Kors is stopped multiple times — often by smartly dressed women in their 20s, who, ironically, recognize him by the aviators he wears anytime he’s out in public, even at night. He gamely poses for photos — almost always with his arms at his side, superhero-style, and always with that toothy showbiz smile. He absentmindedly hums “Slow Boat to China,” a pop standard from the ’40s that’s been covered by his idols Liza Minnelli and Bette Midler. “Everyone is so young here,” he says. “I feel like Methuselah.”
饭后，他来到外滩。它是市中心沿黄浦江的一条步行道，周围是奇形怪状的摩天大楼，明亮的灯光把江水映得五光十色。科尔斯碰到了好几个粉丝，大多是20多岁、着装精致的女人。讽刺的是，她们能认出他，是因为他不管什么时候出现在公众场合都要佩戴飞行员眼镜，包括晚上。他兴致勃勃地摆姿势合影，几乎总是把胳膊垂在自己身侧，像超级英雄那样，而且总是带着演艺人士的露齿微笑。他心不在焉地哼着《开往中国的慢船》(Slow Boat to China)，它是40年代的一首流行歌曲，他的偶像丽莎·明内利(Liza Minnelli)和贝特·米德勒(Bette Midler)曾翻唱过这首歌。“这里的每个人都这么年轻，”他说，“我感觉自己像个年纪很大的人。”
The following night, Kors arrives at his new shop on Nanjing Road, not far from Tory Burch and Abercrombie & Fitch stores and just across the street from where Chairman Mao’s former home has been turned into a museum. He’s here to cut a ribbon, to christen the place, and Miranda Kerr was invited to help. The store is packed with photographers. “They must be here for Miranda,” he says, bounding off into the crowd with that arm-swinging, sideways walk he uses to close out his runway shows.
第二天晚上，科尔斯来到南京路自己的新店，该店离Tory Burch的店铺和Abercrombie & Fitch的店铺不远，对面是毛泽东故居改建的博物馆。他来给店铺剪彩揭幕，米兰达·凯尔(Miranda Kerr)被请来帮忙。店里挤满了摄影师。“他们应该是为米兰达而来的，”他说。他用时装秀谢幕时挥舞手臂、侧身走的姿势跳跃着走进人群。
Kors’s origin story in the world of fashion is about as American as apple pie — or, as was the case for a Jewish boy growing up in suburban New York, Sunday-night Chinese. His “liberal and out-there” mother, a former model who attempted to try out for the Philadelphia Eagles football team (“at 128 pounds, she wasn’t what they had in mind”), was loving but far from doting, allowing her young teenage son to take unchaperoned weekend trips into the city with friends. There wasn’t a time when he didn’t care deeply about theater, fashion and the theater of fashion. According to legend — and nobody loves to mythologize Kors more than he does — he designed the dress for his mother’s second wedding when he was 5 years old. At 16, instead of going to his prom, he stopped by “to watch the red carpet arrivals,” and then headed off to Studio 54, where he was a screwdriver-drinking regular in “Olivia Newton-John ‘Physical’-era” outfits. A short stint in acting school was followed by a shorter one at the Fashion Institute of Technology; he dropped out after nine months to work at Lothar’s boutique, whose owner gave him the chance to display his own designs. Soon after, Kors was discovered by Dawn Mello, Bergdorf Goodman’s fashion director at the time, who set his career on the right path, and by 1981, at the age of 22, his clothing was being sold in stores around the country.Even as a child, he was drawn to the rush of adventure. When, in grade school, his classmates brought guppies for show and tell, he brought European currency. “There I was, like, ‘This is Italian lire. These are French francs.’ I think I was bitten really young,” he says, taking in the cacophony of the city from the rooftop patio of his suite at the Peninsula hotel. (He orders “one club sandwich, no egg, with a side of fries,” before marveling again at the view.)
科尔斯在时装界的创业故事和苹果派一样具有美国特色，或者说是在纽约郊区长大的犹太男孩的典型案例。他“自由自在而不同寻常的”妈妈曾是个模特，后来曾尝试加入费城老鹰橄榄球队（“她当时128磅，不是他们想要的类型”）。她慈爱但不溺爱，周末让十几岁的儿子和朋友们自己进城游玩。他一直很喜欢戏剧、时装和时装戏剧。据说——没人比科尔斯本人更喜欢把自己弄得像神话——他五岁时为妈妈设计了第二次婚礼的连衣裙。16岁时，他没去参加毕业舞会，而是去“观看红毯秀”，然后前往54录音室(Studio 54)，他是那里的常客，经常喝螺丝钻鸡尾酒，身穿“奥利维娅·纽顿-约翰(Olivia Newton-John)的《身体》(Physical)流行时那个时代”的套装。他在表演学校学习了一小段时间，之后在美国时装技术学院就读了更短一段时间，九个月后就退学去洛塔尔时装精品店(Lothar’s)工作，该店的所有者给他机会展示自己设计的服装。不久之后，波道夫·古德曼(Bergdorf Goodman)的时任时尚总监道恩·梅洛(Dawn Mello)发现了他，帮他的事业走上了正规。1981年，年仅22岁的科尔斯所设计的服装出现在美国各地的店铺。他童年时就非常喜欢冒险。上小学时，同学们把孔雀鱼带到学校炫耀，他带的是欧洲货币。“当时我大概是这么说的，‘这是意大利里拉。这些是法国法郎。’我觉得自己打小就是财迷，”他说。当时他在半岛酒店套房的屋顶露台上倾听这座城市的各种噪音（再次惊叹眼前的景色之前，他点了“一份总汇三明治不加蛋，配薯条”）。
The stamps in his passport have reflected his evolving aesthetic over the years — mixing the known and the unexpected to keep his classic designs fresh season after season. Glamour and aspiration are what fashion is all about for Kors, who has never been one to work through his demons with all-black ensembles. “I think about design the way I think about travel,” he says. “If it’s totally from left field, it turns out to be the thing you wear once and never again. But if it’s something you know too well, you’re bored by it.” Now, every time he goes somewhere, he checks to see what people are wearing — and listens to get a sense of what might be missing from their closets. It started in Paris, in 1997, when he was hired by the French fashion house Céline. “It was the first time I’d noticed that women would buy white winter coats,” he says. “They didn’t give a hoot.”
护照上的印戳反映出这些年他的审美变化——把已知的和意料之外的结合起来，让他的经典设计每一季都保持新鲜。对科尔斯来说，魅力和渴望是时尚的精髓，他从不会让自己的时装秀充满全黑套装。“我对设计的看法跟旅行一样，”他说，“如果它特别古怪，你只会穿一次，不会再穿。如果它是你太过熟悉的东西，你会对它感到厌倦。”现在，不管去哪儿，他都会观察那里的人穿什么衣服，听他们讲话，了解他们的衣橱里可能缺什么。他从1997年在巴黎的法国时装公司赛琳(Céline)工作时就养成了这个习惯。“那是我第一次注意到女人会买白色的冬季外套，”他说，“她们不在乎。”
He’s since “played with Capri, Wyoming and Big Sur,” but not with any sort of specificity. “We will not get back to New York and do sea-foam green and gold cheongsam wraps. I never want to turn it into, ‘Oh, here she comes, wearing the national costume of Zimbabwe!’ ” While dining out in Sydney a few years ago, for example, he noticed a woman wearing a strapless dress over a bathing suit top rather than a bra; his 2011 resort collection captured the undoneness of a day at the beach, with sarong-like skirts and ombré T-shirts. Last year, on a getaway on Long Island to design looks for spring 2014, he became transfixed by the way the curtains in his beach house blew in the wind. “That was the moment,” he says. The ensuing designs mixed in bits of airy white linen, but there were no Norma Desmond nightgowns or robes. “It was just a feeling — nothing literal. It’s like if you buy something too place-specific for your house, like, ‘What am I going to do with this Balinese prayer table? I live in a one-bedroom in Murray Hill!’ ”
从那以后，他“曾受到卡普里岛、怀俄明州和大苏尔景区的启发”，但从不只拿某种地方特色做文章。“我们不会回到纽约，尝试海绿色和金色旗袍。我从不想弄成这种效果——‘哦，她来了，穿着津巴布韦的民族服装！’”例如，几年前在悉尼外出用餐时，他发现一个女人穿着无肩带连衣裙，里面穿着泳衣上装，而不是胸罩；他的2011年度假系列流露出这种轻松自在的感觉，包括纱笼式半身裙和渐变色T恤。去年，他躲到长岛上设计2014年春装时，迷上了自己海滨别墅里被风吹动的窗帘。“那就是灵光乍现的一刻，”他说。他那一季的设计里包括一些空灵的白色亚麻服装，但是没有诺尔玛·德蒙(Norma Desmond)式的睡衣或长袍。“它只是一种感觉，不是具体的东西。就好像如果让你买一件太具地方特色的家具，你会说，‘我要这个巴厘岛祈祷桌干什么？我住的可是默里山的一居室！’”
Even on this short trip to Shanghai, he’s taken mental notes of the people he’s seen and the clothes they wear: “natty” men carrying clutches, the prevailing use of yellow and, on one woman, a particularly eye-catching pair of diamante heels, “almost like she was playing soccer with a diamond ball.”The thing that separates Kors from his less approachable peers — in fact, the thing on which he’s built his entire business — is his desire to be liked, and with it the effortless way that he’s made himself into a likable showman, as engaged at the Met Ball as he is when talking to his customers. And he in turn can tell a lot about a culture from his public appearances. In the Tokyo store, people not only waited “perfectly and calmly,” but also “in single file,” while his Toronto crowds have always been “friendly.” He was mobbed at a cosmetics store in Manila by women wearing traditional Philippine garb — “organza sleeves, very Imelda-ish.” But nothing quite compares to New York, where his annual Fashion’s Night Out event turns into what he describes as “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral — we had a lady throw her infant to cut a line and meet me. Then there was the sofa-jumper, but that’s anticlimactic compared to the baby-thrower.” On the street, he’s had women remove their shoes to prove to him that they’re wearing his designs. “I’ve even signed asses in New York,” he says. “I have! It’s the weirdest thing.”
即使在这次短暂的上海之旅中，他也在头脑中记下他见过的人和他们穿的衣服：拿着手包的“整洁”男人，黄色普遍流行，有个女人穿着一双特别惹眼的钻石高跟鞋，“像是在踢一个镶满钻石的足球”。有些同行们不像科尔斯那样亲切，他同他们的区别之一在于他渴望被喜欢，因此不遗余力地把自己变成一个可爱的艺人，不管是参加大都会艺术博物馆的慈善舞会还是跟顾客们交谈，他都非常投入。实际上，他的整个事业都是以此为基础的。他也能从公众活动中看出一个文化的很多特点。在东京的商店里，人们不仅“完美、平静地”等待，而且“排成一队”；多伦多人总是很“友好”。在马尼拉的一个化妆品商店，他被一群穿着菲律宾传统服装（“袖子是用透明硬纱做成的，很有伊梅尔达风情”）的女人团团围住。但哪儿都没法儿跟纽约相比，每年他都在这里举办时装狂欢夜(Fashion’s Night Out)，最后都会变成他所说的“OK镇大决斗——有位女士为了见到我把自己的婴儿扔进来插队。还有人跳过沙发，但是跟那位扔孩子的女士相比，跳沙发根本不算什么。”在大街上，有些女人把鞋脱下来向他证明自己穿的是他设计的鞋子。“在纽约，我甚至在屁股上签过名，”他说，“真的！太不可思议了。”
Later tonight, Kors will be driven to the Hongqiao International Airport for the Jet Set Experience, a runway spectacle with holograms, a fake snowfall and the one-off pieces — from cutaway swimsuits to floor-length fur coats — he’s created for the event. He’ll air-kiss actresses and, when it’s all done, take the stage for a Broadway-style send-off next to the supermodel Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. But that’s not for another few hours. It’s his final afternoon in Shanghai, and he’d like to spend it checking out the French Concession, an area lined with colonial homes and peppered with market stalls. It’ll have to be quick — “drive-by sightseeing,” as he calls it. “I want to take in all the sights and sounds and smells of the city,” he says. And then out comes that giant grin again. “A little ceramics shopping wouldn’t kill me either.”
今晚晚些时候，科尔斯将驱车前往虹桥国际机场，参加盛大的时装秀“富豪体验”(Jet Set Experience)，包括全息摄影、人工降雪以及他为这次活动创作的一次性服装——从下摆裁成圆角的泳衣到垂至地面的皮毛大衣。他将对女演员们飞吻，活动结束后，他将和超模罗西·亨廷顿-怀特利(Rosie Huntington-Whiteley)一起在舞台上上演百老汇戏剧式的送别场面。但是那场活动几个小时后才举行。这是他在上海的最后一个下午，他想去法租界看看，那里有很多殖民地时期的建筑以及摊铺。他只能匆匆浏览——就像他说的，“走马观花”。“我想感受这座城市所有的风景、声音和味道，”他说。然后他再次咧嘴而笑。“买点瓷器也挺好的。”