Lance Le Pere
Fashion Industry Leader, Philanthropist and Activist
Michael Kors and Lance Le Pere are fashion industry leaders, philanthropists and activists. Kors started his eponymous fashion line in 1981 and has overseen its growth into a global brand with hundreds of stores around the world. Le Pere, who joined the Michael Kors company in 1992, currently serves as the creative director of women’s design at Michael Kors. Kors and Le Pere were married in 2011 and have been longtime residents of New York City. As philanthropists, Kors and Le Pere actively support multiple causes meaningful to them.
Michael and Lance have been passionate champions for God’s Love We Deliver, a New York City-based non-profit that provides medically tailored meals to people living with critical illnesses in the Tri-State area, since the late 1980s. Kors’ personal gift in 2012 to the organization, where he is on the board, helped initiate a major expansion of their facilities; the opening of the Michael Kors Building at God’s Love We Deliver was celebrated in 2015. In 2024, God’s Love delivered more than 4 million meals, each one made from scratch, customized, and home-delivered. In 2013, Michael Kors, the company, launched WATCH HUNGER STOP, a philanthropic campaign supporting the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), and Michael currently serves as a WFP Goodwill Ambassador. To date, Watch Hunger Stop has helped WFP deliver more than 35 million school meals to children in need.
For more than 20 years, Michael and Lance have been enthusiastic patrons of the New York Restoration Project, an organization working to build a greener, more resilient city through the creation of high-quality public gardens and parks throughout the five boroughs. They regularly participate in the organization’s bi-annual events and have sponsored a garden on Essex Street in Brooklyn. Additionally, the Kors Le Pere Foundation is a founding supporter of the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center here in New York City. Opened in June 2024, it is the first United States National Parks Services visitor center dedicated to LGBTQ+ rights and history.
The pair support many other organizations locally, nationally and globally, including the Roundabout Theatre Company, New York City Center, Lincoln Center Theater, F.I.T., amfAR, the NewYork-Presbyterian Fund, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, the LGBT Community Center, the NYC AIDS Memorial Park, of which they were founding supporters, the NAACP, The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lambda Legal, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Planned Parenthood and the World Wildlife Fund.
Photo Credit: Inez & Vinoodh