邁克·科爾斯在上海 走馬觀花也流光溢彩

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!”

邁克·科爾斯(Michael Kors)帶着自己的獨角秀——迷人的時裝、活潑的俏皮話和瘋狂的粉絲等——上路了。“來，嚐嚐墨西哥肉卷。”邁克·科爾斯轉動餐桌轉盤，就像在轉動幸運輪，讓一盤面皮停在我面前。“往麪皮上放點蔥絲。再放點海鮮醬。再加點鴨皮和小黃瓜條，把它變成無與倫比的美味！”這位55歲的美國設計師昨天從紐約飛到上海，儘管有時差，但他精神很好。他每次旅行都保持衝浪般的心態，目前他處於浪尖滑行的階段。“你先被一個大浪衝擊，”他一邊說一邊模仿被大浪衝擊的樣子，然後胳膊做出和夥伴們一起翻滾的流暢動作。“然後，你就能在那個浪上滑行了。”這是科爾斯第一次來上海，他來這裏是爲自己閃亮的兩層旗艦店開幕。他還將在離店一小時車程的一個飛機庫裏舉辦該品牌的首次超級浸入式多媒體時裝秀，屆時一千名時尚名流（包括演員卡米拉·貝爾[Camilla Belle]、芙蕾達·平託[Freida Pinto]和希拉里·斯旺克[Hilary Swank]，他們將爲此飛到上海）將到場。但是眼下，他的注意力集中在食物上。他拿起另一種食物，說道，“哦！我超愛水晶蝦！”他打算開玩笑時就會笑得特別燦爛，“你認識她吧？她是來自納什維爾的變裝皇后，和清湯餛飩是好朋友！”

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、商業夥伴朗斯·勒皮埃(Lance LePere)一眼。勒皮埃是在科爾斯的巴黎辦公室實習時與他相識的。“牆壁是什麼顏色，朗斯？”勒皮埃看了看龍鳳餐廳空曠華麗的大廳，說道，“嗯……像拉杜麗甜品店(Ladurée)？”科爾斯搖了搖頭。“你一定是累了。我覺得它更像克拉裏奇酒店[Claridge’s]。”科爾斯揚起一個眉毛，好像他剛給所有人上了關於全球化的重要一課。“拉杜麗變克拉裏奇，它實際上是蒂芙尼(Tiffany)，奧黛麗·赫本(Audrey Hepburn)剛剛輕輕飄過！”正是這些無窮無盡的滑稽的俏皮話讓科爾斯在擔任時裝競賽節目“天橋風雲”(Project Runway)十季評委時深受喜愛，在這個節目的推動下，他的公司變成了十億美元的帝國。這個節目也讓他在地球的另一端過馬路時總能碰上粉絲，或者看到他設計的那些令人垂涎的手袋的仿製品。

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.”

飯後，他來到外灘。它是市中心沿黃浦江的一條步行道，周圍是奇形怪狀的摩天大樓，明亮的燈光把江水映得五光十色。科爾斯碰到了好幾個粉絲，大多是20多歲、着裝精緻的女人。諷刺的是，她們能認出他，是因爲他不管什麼時候出現在公衆場合都要佩戴飛行員眼鏡，包括晚上。他興致勃勃地擺姿勢合影，幾乎總是把胳膊垂在自己身側，像超級英雄那樣，而且總是帶着演藝人士的露齒微笑。他心不在焉地哼着《開往中國的慢船》(Slow Boat to China)，它是40年代的一首流行歌曲，他的偶像麗莎·明內利(Liza Minnelli)和貝特·米德勒(Bette Midler)曾翻唱過這首歌。“這裏的每個人都這麼年輕，”他說，“我感覺自己像個年紀很大的人。”

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，科爾斯來到南京路自己的新店，該店離Tory Burch的店鋪和Abercrombie & Fitch的店鋪不遠，對面是毛澤東故居改建的博物館。他來給店鋪剪綵揭幕，米蘭達·凱爾(Miranda Kerr)被請來幫忙。店裏擠滿了攝影師。“他們應該是爲米蘭達而來的，”他說。他用時裝秀謝幕時揮舞手臂、側身走的姿勢跳躍着走進人羣。

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 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.)

科爾斯在時裝界的創業故事和蘋果派一樣具有美國特色，或者說是在紐約郊區長大的猶太男孩的典型案例。他“自由自在而不同尋常的”媽媽曾是個模特，後來曾嘗試加入費城老鷹橄欖球隊（“她當時128磅，不是他們想要的類型”）。她慈愛但不溺愛，週末讓十幾歲的兒子和朋友們自己進城遊玩。他一直很喜歡戲劇、時裝和時裝戲劇。據說——沒人比科爾斯本人更喜歡把自己弄得像神話——他五歲時爲媽媽設計了第二次婚禮的連衣裙。16歲時，他沒去參加畢業舞會，而是去“觀看紅毯秀”，然後前往54錄音室(Studio 54)，他是那裏的常客，經常喝螺絲鑽雞尾酒，身穿“奧利維婭·紐頓-約翰(Olivia Newton-John)的《身體》(Physical)流行時那個時代”的套裝。他在表演學校學習了一小段時間，之後在美國時裝技術學院就讀了更短一段時間，九個月後就退學去洛塔爾時裝精品店(Lothar’s)工作，該店的所有者給他機會展示自己設計的服裝。不久之後，波道夫·古德曼(Bergdorf Goodman)的時任時尚總監道恩·梅洛(Dawn Mello)發現了他，幫他的事業走上了正規。1981年，年僅22歲的科爾斯所設計的服裝出現在美國各地的店鋪。他童年時就非常喜歡冒險。上小學時，同學們把孔雀魚帶到學校炫耀，他帶的是歐洲貨幣。“當時我大概是這麼說的，‘這是意大利里拉。這些是法國法郎。’我覺得自己打小就是財迷，”他說。當時他在半島酒店套房的屋頂露臺上傾聽這座城市的各種噪音（再次驚歎眼前的景色之前，他點了“一份總彙三明治不加蛋，配薯條”）。

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.”

護照上的印戳反映出這些年他的審美變化——把已知的和意料之外的結合起來，讓他的經典設計每一季都保持新鮮。對科爾斯來說，魅力和渴望是時尚的精髓，他從不會讓自己的時裝秀充滿全黑套裝。“我對設計的看法跟旅行一樣，”他說，“如果它特別古怪，你只會穿一次，不會再穿。如果它是你太過熟悉的東西，你會對它感到厭倦。”現在，不管去哪兒，他都會觀察那裏的人穿什麼衣服，聽他們講話，瞭解他們的衣櫥裏可能缺什麼。他從1997年在巴黎的法國時裝公司賽琳(Céline)工作時就養成了這個習慣。“那是我第一次注意到女人會買白色的冬季外套，”他說，“她們不在乎。”

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!’ ”

從那以後，他“曾受到卡普里島、懷俄明州和大蘇爾景區的啓發”，但從不只拿某種地方特色做文章。“我們不會回到紐約，嘗試海綠色和金色旗袍。我從不想弄成這種效果——‘哦，她來了，穿着津巴布韋的民族服裝！’”例如，幾年前在悉尼外出用餐時，他發現一個女人穿着無肩帶連衣裙，裏面穿着泳衣上裝，而不是胸罩；他的2011年度假系列流露出這種輕鬆自在的感覺，包括紗籠式半身裙和漸變色T恤。去年，他躲到長島上設計2014年春裝時，迷上了自己海濱別墅裏被風吹動的窗簾。“那就是靈光乍現的一刻，”他說。他那一季的設計裏包括一些空靈的白色亞麻服裝，但是沒有諾爾瑪·德蒙(Norma Desmond)式的睡衣或長袍。“它只是一種感覺，不是具體的東西。就好像如果讓你買一件太具地方特色的傢俱，你會說，‘我要這個巴厘島祈禱桌幹什麼？我住的可是默裏山的一居室！’”

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.”

即使在這次短暫的上海之旅中，他也在頭腦中記下他見過的人和他們穿的衣服：拿着手包的“整潔”男人，黃色普遍流行，有個女人穿着一雙特別惹眼的鑽石高跟鞋，“像是在踢一個鑲滿鑽石的足球”。有些同行們不像科爾斯那樣親切，他同他們的區別之一在於他渴望被喜歡，因此不遺餘力地把自己變成一個可愛的藝人，不管是參加大都會藝術博物館的慈善舞會還是跟顧客們交談，他都非常投入。實際上，他的整個事業都是以此爲基礎的。他也能從公衆活動中看出一個文化的很多特點。在東京的商店裏，人們不僅“完美、平靜地”等待，而且“排成一隊”；多倫多人總是很“友好”。在馬尼拉的一個化妝品商店，他被一羣穿着菲律賓傳統服裝（“袖子是用透明硬紗做成的，很有伊梅爾達風情”）的女人團團圍住。但哪兒都沒法兒跟紐約相比，每年他都在這裏舉辦時裝狂歡夜(Fashion’s Night Out)，最後都會變成他所說的“OK鎮大決鬥——有位女士爲了見到我把自己的嬰兒扔進來插隊。還有人跳過沙發，但是跟那位扔孩子的女士相比，跳沙發根本不算什麼。”在大街上，有些女人把鞋脫下來向他證明自己穿的是他設計的鞋子。“在紐約，我甚至在屁股上籤過名，”他說，“真的！太不可思議了。”

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.”

今晚晚些時候，科爾斯將驅車前往虹橋國際機場，參加盛大的時裝秀“富豪體驗”(Jet Set Experience)，包括全息攝影、人工降雪以及他爲這次活動創作的一次性服裝——從下襬裁成圓角的泳衣到垂至地面的皮毛大衣。他將對女演員們飛吻，活動結束後，他將和超模羅西·亨廷頓-懷特利(Rosie Huntington-Whiteley)一起在舞臺上上演百老匯戲劇式的送別場面。但是那場活動幾個小時後才舉行。這是他在上海的最後一個下午，他想去法租界看看，那裏有很多殖民地時期的建築以及攤鋪。他只能匆匆瀏覽——就像他說的，“走馬觀花”。“我想感受這座城市所有的風景、聲音和味道，”他說。然後他再次咧嘴而笑。“買點瓷器也挺好的。”