Michael Stars

Michael Stars is a brand for ladies’ fashion based in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1986 by Michael Cohen and Suzanne Lerner who remains the sole CEO after the passing of her husband. A central selling point of the brand is its stance on corporate responsibility: more than two thirds of its garments are produced locally in L.A. in order to guarantee fair wages, high quality, and a smaller carbon footprint, 80% of the staff are women and all clothes are made to last long. By means of the Michael Stars Foundation, the company seeks to support grassroots organizations who share the values of gender, race, and socioeconomic equality.

The brand typeface is Alaric Garnier’s Mars, used in its Extended width and in all-caps typesetting. On the website, Mars features for the menu, buttons, and headlines. It’s combined with the geometric sans-serif Sailec by Nico Inosanto of Type Dynamic for reading text and product info. Mars was first released in Extended and Condensed styles in 2018, in 2021 a Standard width was added to the trio available from Production Type.