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Michael Stars is a privately owned and family-run Los Angeles-based retail clothing brand that is known for its luxury essentials that embody the modern California lifestyle.

History
In 1977, South African born Michael Cohen came to Los Angeles to work for a British shirt company. In 1986, at a fair in Manhattan Beach, California, Cohen met an artist selling hand-painted t-shirts and this prompted him to create his own clothing line. With the help of this artist, the original Michael Stars designs were created and took the shape of unisex t-shirts decorated with French inspired graphics in bright colors. This was the starting point and basis for the brand.

Upon meeting his future wife, Suzanne Lerner, a successful clothing rep and owner of Lerner et Cie, the two co-founded the Michael Stars brand.

In the late 80’s, these tees were popular internationally to both men and women, and were sold to retailers such as Barneys New York, Fred Segal, Harrods, and Bloomingdale's.

Building on the success of the t-shirt, Michael Stars expanded to all genres of clothing, starting with the “Maternitees” collection in 2001. In 2006, Michael Stars launched a cashmere collection, followed by a dress collection in the Spring of 2007 and an accessories and eyewear division in 2009. Today, Michael Stars is a leader in the women’s contemporary market, distinguished by its large selection of styles, wide color assortment, and comfortable fabrics.

Michael Stars designs and sells apparel and accessories for women in the United States and internationally. The company offers tees, dresses, sweaters, jackets and bottoms, as well as a variety of fashion accessories including hats, scarves, totes, footwear, sunglasses and optical eyewear. The sunwear and eyewear play off of the Michael Stars seasonal color palettes and are an extension of this casual lifestyle look. As of 2012, the company has grown to 200 employees. Its products retail throughout all 50 states and are sold at numerous retailers internationally.

Michael Stars now offers more than 200 styles in more than 30 colors per season.

Store Locations
The first Michael Stars flagship store opened its doors in Manhattan Beach, California in 2001 by co-founders Michael Cohen and Suzanne Lerner. Since then, Michael Stars has opened numerous California boutiques, including locations in The Village at Corte Madera, Manhattan Beach, Fashion Island, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, and Broadway Plaza, as well as locations in Scottsdale, Arizona; Atlanta, Georgia; East Hampton, New York; and Las Vegas, Nevada.

The designs can also be found in upscale department stores such as Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, CUSP, specialty boutiques worldwide and online at Zappos.com, Piperlime.com, and RevolveClothing.com. The company debuted its website, www.michaelstars.com, in 2000, and launched an online store in 2003.

Products
Michael Stars prides itself on “creating a quality product that is going to last.” Therefore, much of their efforts go into choosing which fabrics to use in order to create long-lasting basic and essential pieces that supply a soft and comfortable feel.

The Michael Stars collection of tees includes a wide variety of styles available in fabrics like Supima Cotton, Supima Modal, Supima Thermal, Micro Jersey and Slub Jersey.

Originally a one size fits most brand, Michael Stars now offers sized garments within their collection division. The complete collection of head-to-toe looks includes: tees, sweaters, leather, dresses, casual sportswear, wovens, linen, accessories and eyewear.

With every new season, Michael Stars offers 24 colors.

The Michael Stars Fall 2012 collection demonstrates the brand’s move into a more sophisticated and versatile aesthetic. This collection features a variety of sweaters, blazers, and leather detailed pieces. The new leather and cashmere fabrics offer a more luxurious and modern design, while keeping up with the California lifestyle aspect and being hip, edgy, and on trend. Sunglasses, fedoras and new accessories are also available.

Lifestyle
Since 1986, Michael Stars has evolved and grown into many categories. The original tee is part of their roots, but they have consciously grown into a lifestyle brand.

The beach-influenced style of Michael Stars is based around the philosophy of the Southern California lifestyle that people all over the world yearn to experience. Michael Stars is designed for those customers who desire to be a part of the California scene and whom are sophisticated, modern, and who love color.

Philanthropy
The philosophy behind the Michael Stars brand is to support the organizations that mean the most to their customer base and its co-founders. The Michael Stars company has always been philanthropic, but in 2006, Michael Cohen, officially created the Michael Stars & Cohen Family Foundation, which was designed to support multiple charities through the development of charity tees, in-store fundraising and monetary donations.

Michael Stars partners with organizations such as the National Coalition for the Homeless, Joyful Heart Foundation, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation , We Advance , Best Buddies International, Make-a-Wish Foundation, Women Thrive Worldwide, Beyond Shelter, and the Step Up Women’s network. The Michael Stars website features a section titled “Shop for a Cause” where each of their partners’ products are available and a portion of the proceeds are donated. These organizations include the Giving Keys, 31 Bits, Love Heals, the Apparent Project, as well as Haitian crafted products. Suzanne Lerner is involved with giving back as a political activist and philanthropist aside from the Michael Stars and Cohen Family Foundation. She is a board member of Women Thrive Worldwide and the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, is a Majority Council member of EMILY’s List, contributes to the Women Donor’s Network, and is active in a number of organizations whose main focus is working with women immigrants. Suzanne Lerner’s involvement with helping women coincides with the beliefs of her husband’s foundation as she focuses on organizations that the Michael Stars customer would be interested in as well.

After the earthquake in Haiti, Suzanne Lerner joined Maria Bello and the Women Donors Network (WDN) along with We Advance teams to advocate for the health, safety and well-being of Haitian women. They went to Haiti prepared with 500 pounds of donated toiletries and 200 Michael Stars tees, and made their way through Haiti visiting a number of women’s organizations distributing goods to those in need.

As a part of the Michael Stars’ 25th anniversary celebration, the company donated 25,000 T-shirts to women in need across the country. Michael Stars partnered with the National Coalition for the Homeless to locate women who were seeking emergency shelter or who were a part of the homeless workforce population.

During the Grand Opening of the Michael Stars East Hampton boutique in 2010, Michael Stars teamed up with Mariska Hargitay and Joyful Heart Foundation, and hosted an event where a limited-edition charity tee to support women and children of domestic violence and sexual assault was created and available for purchase. For every tee purchased, Michael Stars gave a tee to a woman in need and donated $5 per purchase to Joyful Heart Foundation.

In 2012, Michael Stars collaboratively hosted an event in their Santa Monica, California location with the Giving Keys organization, whose main goal is to employ the homeless. At this event, attendees were able to purchase a unique hand-crafted necklace with their choice of inspirational engraving on it with the purpose of passing it along to someone in need in the future.

Press
Michael Stars’ styles have been featured on the pages of top-selling fashion magazines such as Lucky (magazine), Vogue (magazine), Elle (magazine) and InStyle. The brand dresses and counts celebrities such as Heidi Klum, [[Stacy Keibler, Courteney Cox, Minka Kelly, Sarah Jessica Parker, Halle Berry, Natalie Portman, Jessica Biel , and Maria Bello among its fans.