Michael Kors looked to the art world for Spring/Summer 2027, presenting his latest collection in the Sculpture Garden at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. With Alexander Calder, Carmen Herrera and Ellsworth Kelly among his references, the setting became more than a backdrop. Their influences could be seen across the collection in blocks of colour, graphic contrasts and silhouettes that placed as much emphasis on shape as decoration.
Colour arrived with confidence. A vivid green skirt suit kept its lines clean, allowing the shade itself to make the statement. The cropped jacket and short A-line skirt were styled with a crisp white collar, black knit and oversized sunglasses, bringing a slightly retro feeling to an otherwise simple look.
Yellow and brown offered a warmer take on the same idea. A mustard coat fell loosely from the shoulders with wide sleeves and minimal detailing, while another look layered shades of tobacco and ochre through an oversized jacket, knit and mini skirt. Rather than breaking these looks up with several contrasting colours, Kors allowed closely related tones to sit together.
Elsewhere, the palette became more unexpected. A brown tailored blazer was worn over a blue shirt with white trousers and bright red boots. The individual pieces were familiar, but the combination made the look feel sharper. Kors used colours throughout the collection in this way, sometimes committing to one shade and elsewhere allowing contrasting tones to compete for attention. Red, green and yellow appear alongside the black and white more closely associated with the New York Wardrobe.
The art references became particularly visible through texture. A white coat was covered in irregular black and green embellishment, giving its otherwise straightforward shape a more sculptural finish, the same treatment appeared on a strapless dress, where black, green and white details covered a rounded silhouette. Against the clean marble of MoMA’s garden, these pieces almost seemed to move between clothing and objects.
The experimentation was balanced by some of the collection’s simplest looks. The fitted black jacket and matching mini skirt relied on precise lines, broken only by a layered white collar and mustard shoes. Tailoring remained important throughout, from neatly shaped jackets to longer coats and more relaxed oversized forms. Kors moved between the two without losing the sense of control that ran through the collection.
Accessories played with scale in a similar way. Oversized circular sunglasses appeared alongside small structured handbags, while larger totes were finished with metal handles. Scarves, statement earrings and flashes of contrasting footwear added personality without distracting from the clothes themselves.
There was a certain order to the collection, even when the surfaces became more elaborate. A sculptural dress could follow a practical coat, while bright green tailoring sat comfortably beside black, brown and white. It reflected the modernist references behind the show, where seemingly simple choices in colour, proportion and shape can completely change how something is seen.
Showing at MoMA made that relationship especially clear. Michael Kors did not simply place fashion inside an art museum for Spring/Summer 2027. He used the ideas surrounding him to rethink some of the pieces he knows best, from the tailored jacket and city coat to the skirt suite. The result was recognisably kors, but viewed from a slightly different angle.
