Picture Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. Only it’s lunch, at the Midtown restaurant Michael’s. The disciples scattered around the long table are 13 very glamorous New York women. And the man in the middle with the wine is a super-tan 54-year-old kid from Long Island, now planting a double kiss on Manhattan social fixture Marjorie Gubelmann. “Hello, gorgeous,” he says in a nasally drawl.

The women—actresses, models, businesswomen, television personalities, social swans, and various combinations thereof—are dying to share their Michael Kors stories. After all, as they see it, without Michael they might have been a bunch of frumpy paper-pushers and soccer moms.

Actress Debra Messing, who made Kors her go-to designer after his clothes had become a staple for her character on the television show Will & Grace, recalls how intimidated she’d been before their first in-person meeting. “I’d borrowed a chocolate-brown suede pant,” she says, gesticulating with her hands, “and a long 60s coat with white piping, and the belt.”

“Look what she’s doing!” Kors shrieks gleefully, imitating the hands. “Piping and the belt. Go ahead … ”

“We met at a bar in some hotel. And literally I felt like I’d met my long-lost Jewish cousin from Long Island.” Kors claps and roars with laughter.

His shows have brought out the spaz in the normally cool Sigourney Weaver, who’s always hopelessly trying to make sense of, and mark up, the list of looks she sees on the runway before the models disappear from view.

“I always feel like Lucy in the candy store,” she says, frantically grabbing at the the air, which sends Kors into cackles. “I sat next to [socialite] Anne Bass—she’s so organized, going like this [making careful check marks]. I’m flailing around.”

“That’s heaven,” says Kors, “Lucy at the candy store!”

He looks to Patti Hansen and Iman, the original supermodel rock-star wives, on the other side of him. “The first time I met them, I’m not just shoveling it to them—they were both all over my walls. I don’t want to sound like a stalker. But to be able to see clothes on women like this blew my mind.”

“I’d just pick up what fits,” says Hansen. “I’m an American kid. Woman.”

“Kid!” Kors corrects her. “We’re all kids!”

“He’s the first designer who understood that the girl next door is no longer just blonde and blue-eyed,” says Iman. “He didn’t just put you in colorful things because you were black.”

“I put her in riding boots, turtleneck, and gray flannels!” says Kors, recalling what Iman wore in his first show, in 1984.

“I was thinking about the punk thing at the Met?” she says. “I was thinking, Who could I call today who’s a punk designer? And I thought of you, because it’s a totally punk idea to stay original and not change your course.”

“How many peacoats have I made?” he says in agreement.

Which brings him to one of his own favorite Michael Kors stories—from when he began working as creative director of the French fashion house Céline in the late 90s. “I’m walking down the Avenue Montaigne and I see a girl across the street. Long hair blowing, gray flannels, peacoat, cashmere turtleneck, aviators [all of them Kors staples]. I was like, Oh my God, I changed French fashion in one season! And I see her coming towards me … ” His voice falls to a flat, disappointed drone. “And it’s her.” He’s glaring pointedly at designer Aerin Lauder, across the table. “I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s you. Oh my God, I’m so depressed.’ ” The table erupts in laughter. More wine is poured.