Michael Stars: A Journey of Activism, Equality and Empowerment in Fashion
Michael Stars is a love story to activism and equality. Cofounded by Suzanne Lerner and her late husband Michael Cohen, the Los Angeles-made brand has been dedicated to supporting and empowering women long before it was popular.
The duo created the Michael Stars Foundation in 2005 to give back to both the local community — more than 70 percent is manufactured in L.A. — and causes that impact women and girls in general. Here, Lerner tells WWD’s sister brand Sourcing Journal how the trendy T-shirt and lifestyle brand has evolved over the years and how her personal experience as a woman and entrepreneur drove her to give back.
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Michael Stars was founded as a purpose-driven brand in 1986. Was there something in your personal upbringing or previous jobs that drove this?
Suzanne Lerner: I was always an activist, from a young age growing up in Chicago, which was a hotbed of anti-war protest, voting rights movements and early feminism. My high school jobs were secretarial, and in college, there were no degrees available in women’s studies, entrepreneurship or DEI training. I felt there was no path for me, so I dropped out. I set off traveling around the world — Europe, Australia and most of Asia — and everywhere I went I met women who had their own stories of gender inequality.
In India, I met a woman in a shop who owned a fashion export company and she invited me to be a partner with her, and soon after she and I were in business. Later, when working in the fashion industry, I felt I wasn’t getting promoted because of my gender, so I became an independent rep and built a national sales company, which is how I met Michael. He walked into my showroom to show me a line of screen-printed sweatshirts. I didn’t like the samples, but I liked him, and asked him out on a date.
Did you name it Michael Stars because you “saw stars” when you met each other?
S.L.: [Laughs]. No, but I love that. John Stars was the artist who made the T-shirt graphics. Together, Michael and I came up with the idea of making the T a high-quality canvas for design. It was a complementary partnership. I knew the fashion business as an experienced entrepreneur, and he was charismatic and an incredible marketer. We started with unisex, one-size-fits-all, but then moved on to our signature fitted Ts and built the company from there. Today we include cashmere, vegan leather, sweaters, coats and Ts with Supima cotton grown in California, with whom we’ve had a relationship since 2004.
And you always had the idea to give to others?
S.L.: Michael and I always gave back. He’d read about a charity in the newspaper and pull out his checkbook — back when people wrote checks. Meanwhile, I was funding things on my own on women’s empowerment, and trying to get more women in Africa and India into government. We were doing that separately, then decided to do it together via a foundation.
As such a philanthropic person, how do you choose the organizations you work with when there are so many worthy causes?
S.L.: We saw an opportunity to build a company that represented what I believed a company should be — one focused on parity and gender equality in the workplace where everyone could have the opportunity to rise. And we picked women and girls because those are the people we sell to.
The Michael Stars Foundation, created 20 years ago, gave us a bigger platform for what we already believed in. It was unusual for smaller companies to do this at the time, but we felt it was important to show our values in action. We focus on women and girls, people of color and underserved communities.
We work with some national organizations but we lean toward grassroots and community organizations led by women of color, such as the Tender Foundation in Atlanta. We also support mentoring across generations with Take the Lead and Step Up, and ensure the right to vote via the (nonpartisan) organization I am a voter. Other charities we have funded include the Ms. Foundation for Women, The Joyful Heart Foundation, We Advance Haiti, Children Mending Hearts and A Call to Men.
What are some milestones in the Michael Stars Foundation?
S.L.: We’ve funded many organizations for years — Step Up for 15 years; Take the Lead, Ms. Foundation for Women and Children Mending Hearts for 10 years. We donate over $150,000 a year to organizations via the Michael Stars Foundation, whether we make a profit or not, and we recently started a volunteer program within the company to help people get engaged and involved.
Michael Stars produces more than 70 percent of its garments locally in L.A. How do you maintain that when so much of your competition is produced overseas?
S.L.: We never thought about going overseas initially. We brought in patternmakers and sample sewers and moved our production to L.A. (after our mill in Pennsylvania went out of business as their customers moved production to China). We had six fabrics and 100 styles, and we shipped six to nine months later. It was an incredible feat that we did it and we were proud we were able to keep production in America.
Today, we have customers who support us because we make clothes in America. We produce at reasonable margins, always keeping quality and pricing aligned and fair. And because we are closer to the process, we can ensure quality and fair wages. It also came in handy during the pandemic since companies couldn’t get goods out of China, but we were able to produce locally.
Michael Stars partnered with ThredUp a couple of years ago. What was the thinking behind this?
S.L.: We’re in the industry to produce clothing, but we don’t want to see our brand ending up in landfill. We’ve always heard stories of people wearing their Michael Stars pieces for over 20 years, so I started buying up vintage Michael Stars pieces during COVID-19 on resale sites. I called up ThredUp because we didn’t have the bandwidth to do it ourselves. They told us we were one of the top-selling brands on their website and since 2020 we’ve recirculated and given a second chance to 91,000 Michael Stars items, displaced 763,000 pounds of CO2e, equivalent to 832,000 miles of driving emissions, and saved 8 million gallons of water, equivalent to 16.1 million days of drinking water.
Additionally, it’s a way to get Gen Z and younger people interested in our brand. With resale, we’re encouraging growth in terms of our customer base, showing that we care about the environment and giving people another option to purchase our products.
As a brand in business for almost 40 years, you’ve seen the industry change so much. What’s newest in how you sell and help customers?
S.L.: We’re currently working with Yotpo, which utilizes customer feedback to inform its sizing tool, which helps reduce returns and boost consumer satisfaction. It’s currently in development and will look similar to Everlane’s sizing tool. We also saw e-commerce net sales increase by approximately 137 percent during the pandemic. Year-to-date in 2023, 38 percent of Michael Stars’ business is done online through michaelstars.com. That’s definitely not something we had in the 1980s.
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