Your Favourite Noughties Model On The Michael Kors Runway

Malgosia Bela is on the runway, the rich and beautiful are crammed cheek by jowl into Barneys, and “No One” by Alicia Keys is playing over the speakers. But this isn’t a pre-financial crisis Manhattan in 2007, it’s New York Fashion Week in 2024, where on Tuesday evening Michael Kors filled the space that used to house the iconic (and now sadly defunct) department store with some of the faces who helped to define fashion in the Noughties.

Down the curved spiral staircase came Mariacarla Boscono wearing a grey double-breasted coat, black heels and a slash of red lipstick, followed soon after by Alek Wek in slouchy tailored trousers, Guinevere van Seenus in a belted charcoal suit and the icy blonde Amber Valletta, wearing a leopard-print coat that simultaneously evoked Jackie Kennedy on the Upper East Side and Whitney Houston in the ’90s (a reference picture that was pinned to Kors’s autumn/winter 2024 moodboard).

“Timeless” was the watchword for the Manhattan designer’s latest collection, a term that could as easily be applied to the beauties gliding along his runway as the nipped-in suit jackets, slinky bias cut dresses and oversized trench coats they were wearing. “One of my hallmarks has always been fashion that stands the test of time,” Kors said. “And when we talk about what’s timeless and what endures – it’s quality, it’s simplicity, it’s sophistication, it’s clothes that make you feel confident and powerful.”

There were plenty of confident and powerful Kors fans on the front row to see his polished take on New York classic up close: Blake Lively (“I will always and forever show up for him,” she said of the designer), Katie Holmes, Gabrielle Union, Brie Larson and K-Pop star Dahyun were all there. Among the standout looks on the mirror-lined runway? A double-breasted black jacket paired with a silky slip dress with a split train, inspired by a photograph of the designer’s grandparents on their wedding day in the 1930s. “There was such a simplicity to it, so chic,” he told Vogue’s Nicole Phelps, before adding: “I started thinking about what endures.”