Anyone familiar with Michael Kors knows that he is full of memorable anecdotes, and at Monday’s CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund dinner, he proved this once again. The designer’s riveting keynote remarks featured tales about his early days, encounters with Donna Karan and Calvin Klein, and meaningful advice to young talent. Here are some of the best moments from the speech.

On his recipe to success: To this day, I believe that if I don’t see my designs walking down the street, then they’re not successful.

On embracing leg warmers: There was a time when I was not in my uniform of black T-shirt, black jacket and jeans every day. It took a long time and a lot of evolution to get to this look. When I was starting out, every day was an experiment in what crazy outfit I could put together. When leg warmers became a fashion trend, I fell in love with them. In fact, I ran out of the house on my way to work wearing three pairs of leg warmers, skin-tight jeans, a bomber jacket and high heel boots. Please keep in mind that I was a 26 jean at the time. Well, as things turn out in fashion, my first Women’s Wear Daily cover was me in that outfit. Unfortunately, they cut off my head and ran me as a girl wearing the latest trend on 57^th Street.

On trying to work for Donna Karan: After I quit school, I still thought that I had to go work for a designer, that I had to get my foot in the door, so I went to see Donna Karan. I showed Donna my portfolio, which I had called Christopher Street Women. Back in the late ‘70s Christopher Street was all about leather shops and gay bars. She looked at it, and said, “I don’t understand. I don’t think women go to Christopher Street.” And I said, “But the idea is that they’ll go to clubs dressed like this.” And it was all mirrored sunglasses and keys in the back pocket and bandanas and biker jackets and leather dresses with zippers. She said, “Very, very interesting but could you do me a favor, could you do a few sketches that might seem more appropriate to Anne Klein?”

On meeting Calvin Klein: So off I went and stayed in my sales job at Lothar’s just around the time of the down jacket explosion. And Lothar’s was famous for their downs and we had a lot of fabulous people, everyone from Vera Wang to Polly Mellon, who were both Vogue editors, to Jackie Kennedy and Rudolf Nureyev, came into the store to buy them. And then one day in walked Calvin Klein. And Calvin wanted to buy some down jackets for himself but we were sold out of everything he was interested in. So I said, “Well let me take down your information.” And I tried to play it very cool but I was basically having a heart attack, I think I even asked him how he spelled Klein. Is that K L I N E or K L E I N? I took the information down and I decided that I was going to do a whole series of sketches and put my name, address and phone number on them. Then I was going to roll the sketches up and put them into the sleeves of his jackets, this way when he tried them on they would come exploding out of the sleeves and he would be guaranteed to see them. I thought he would immediately say, “Oh my god I must hire this boy, he’s brilliant.” And I’d be on my way.

Luckily, a friend of mine told me that the whole concept was way too “I Love Lucy” and I might actually offend Calvin. So instead I delivered the jackets with the sketches. And I didn’t hear anything. Then a few months later, he called and he said, “I hope you don’t think I’m rude. We got these wonderful sketches from you. We really don’t have an opening right now. But I just wanted to tell you they look great and thanks so much for dropping them off.”

On the power of digital: Now with social media, we communicate with our fans globally. Social media posts are the trunk shows of today.  You get to see what customers are responding to, what they like and what they don’t like. It’s like having a conversation with my fans all over the world. But I have to tell you, nothing beats the personal touch. I still relish the one on one experience of taking my collection directly to the customer.

Kors’s three lessons for young designers:

1. When you think about your fashion career, you can never think you’ve arrived. The worst question that a journalist will ask me is, “When did you know you made it?” because to me, the minute you think you’ve made it, you’re finished. You always need to be thinking, “What’s next? How could I do it better? How could I evolve this?” And that’s the nature of this industry, it keeps growing and it keeps changing. And often it happens from experimentation. It happens without even planning it, and you have to go with your gut.
2. The greatest assets you have as a designer are your instincts—about what’s happening in the world, about what’s happening in people’s lives—and your empathy. If you can be empathetic, you’ve won half the battle.
3. I don’t want anyone who is here tonight to be a flash in the pan. I want to see all of you grow, to evolve for many years to come, to become CFDA Lifetime Achievement winners, and the formula for that, it’s individual for each person, but no matter what, never lose touch with your customer, never stop trying new things, and always stay curious. If you think that this is a job, you’re in the wrong industry. It’s not a job, it’s a life.