by Donna Karan
As promised, they gave us the Takihyo conference room to get started, which was convenient because I was still finishing up the Anne Klein spring collection with Louis. After this collection, Louis would be chief designer of Anne Klein & Co., an amazing opportunity for him, just as mine was for me. But still. I had such a heavy heart about losing my partner in crime. I valued Louis’s talent, opinion, friendship, and steadiness so much. Louis and I had been a team for so long, we were so in sync, that in order to separate, we really had to separate. We couldn’t chance overlapping ideas. We were now competitors in the same way we were with Calvin or Ralph. Creatively, I was on my own again.
Stephan handled all our business and legal transactions. We were four partners now, and Frank and Tomio had a lot more experience than my husband and I, but Stephan rose to the challenge, reading all the legalese and agreements, asking questions, and challenging details where we disagreed. We met at Tomio’s lawyer’s office to finalize the deal. There were seventeen documents to sign. I was named chief designer and chief executive officer. Most important, I retained ownership of my name under an entity called Gabrielle Studio. This meant that no matter what happened with this new company, my name was mine to do what I’d like with, including take it away if it ever came to that. This was key. We saw what selling one’s name had done to Halston, who lost control and prestige when his label started appearing on cheaper goods. Bergdorf’s even stopped carrying his designer line.
Someone was pouring champagne, but I passed. Great as these terms were for us—and by any measure, they were—I couldn’t stop crying. The thought of separating from Anne Klein and starting under my own name was too much. Letting go of anything big in my life terrifies me. Could I really do this?
—
There are things in life you block out because they’re too painful. My last Anne Klein show was one. Even though it was the spring collection inspired by my wedding, I don’t remember it. I only remember sobbing as Louis and I walked down the runway. The last time I cried that much was my first solo show for Anne Klein. Once again, something had to end for something else to begin.
Credit 11.1
12
SEVEN (NOT SO) EASY PIECES
New husband. New company. New job. All in New York, a place where ten million things happen at once. At thirty-six years old, I was a wife, a mother, and a designer starting over. I was constantly moving, constantly juggling. There was so much to do, touch, remember. I was learning how to keep all the balls in the air, how to hold on to myself, and how to shrink my multifaceted world down into something manageable. Everything I designed was in answer to the urban lifestyle I was living. As I started this venture, I knew one thing for sure: I wouldn’t just dress this woman. I would address her, too.
The transition from my old job to this new one was an emotional jolt. One day I came into Anne Klein, and the design room, with all my stuff in it, was blocked off to me. On the door was a Do Not Enter sign with a skull and crossbones on it. The conference room they gave me had no windows, no air, and no space to set up even half of the things I needed to lay out. That’s when I knew I had to move my new business to my apartment.
For me, the best part about being busy is that I don’t have time to think. I just do. And there was so much to do. First I had to secure the right people, because you’re only as good as the team behind you. Next I had to find a space and set up a design room. Then I had to create a sample room from scratch, hire fitting models, recruit salespeople, and hire merchandising and production teams. Budget everything and plan a time line, a marketing strategy, a retail rollout. Gather supplies—design, office, backroom. Develop a brand strategy—we didn’t even have a company name. And after all that, where and how would we show these clothes? My head spun, but I forged ahead.
Creatively, I needed fabric to get going. I called my friend Alida Miller, who was Bottega Veneta’s vice president of development and merchandising at the time and asked her to come work for me, to be my first employee. Alida was a former YSL model, as talented as she was gorgeous, and I asked her to come with me to Ideacomo, the Italian textile fair. “Alida, you have to be in charge of money,” I said. “I lose it around fabrics. They’re my drug.” I had $100,000 in total to make the collection—far from the blank check I’d had at Anne Klein. The trip was frustrating. The last time I was there, I had worked to develop a specific stretch wool-cashmere blend at Loro Piana, the luxe fabric house. But the fabric now had Louis’s name on it, not mine. Worse, he had the platform; the mills made it clear that Anne Klein orders had priority. For a fabric junkie like me, that stung.
Then a miracle happened. Someone showed me a piece of black stretch crepe, and I fell in love. It was light and comfortable, with a natural give, and I knew immediately that this fabric would change everything. It was very expensive, something like $35 a yard—unheard of in those days, when the top fabric was maybe $20. But I knew this crepe would let me make exactly what I wanted: jackets, skirts, pants, everything.
While I was in Italy, I looked up Jane Chung, my former assistant at Anne Klein. Jane had left the company just a few months back to live and work in Milan, which proved prophetic, since I wasn’t able to poach from Anne Klein. Jane was one of the most creative assistants we had. I was once this close to firing her for not pulling her weight, but her talent—and a good talking to—saved her. Our dynamic reminded me of Anne Klein and a younger me: a mentor disciplining and nurturing a promising protégé.
Creativity is everything to me, and Jane was a visionary. I saw it when I first mentored her at Parsons (where she happened to use Gabby as her model), and I saw it time and again at Anne Klein. A true design talent isn’t a one-noter. He or she appreciates the breadth of fashion: day, evening, sportswear, dresses, precise tailoring, sensuality. You can be an excellent tailor, but can you see what is in front of you and create something you haven’t done before? Do you have the itch to innovate something that goes against the grain of what’s expected? That’s what I look for in a designer. Once Jane was trying out a new silhouette, one with deeper armholes. Louis said it wouldn’t work because you couldn’t get a jacket over it, but whether or not it worked, I appreciated that Jane wasn’t guided by the past. She looked to the future. You can’t teach that.
When Jane and I met up, I begged her to join in my new venture. “But Donna, I just got here,” Jane said. “I have a two-year contract with my new job, and I’ve got a boyfriend….”
“I hear you. But this is a brand-new company,” I said. “We can design anything we want! You’ll never have this opportunity again. What do you need? Two, three weeks?”
“Try two or three months—at least.”
“Okay, I’ll share you.”
“Can I have some time to think about this?”
We smiled at each other because Jane knew I wasn’t giving up. I was determined to have her by my side.
—
Back in New York, my first order of business was hiring an executive assistant—not a phone answerer, but someone who could help source everything necessary. I had the perfect person in mind: Beth Wohlgelernter. Beth was Mary McFadden’s assistant, and Mary was the president of the CFDA. Beth had been organizing and running the award dinners for three years—not an easy job, especially with all the clashing egos. I offered Beth the job straightaway, making her my second official hire after Alida.
“Donna, you should know I observe the Sabbath,” she said.
“So?” I wasn’t sure what she was getting at.
“That means I’m tied up Friday afternoons and all day Saturday.”
“Oh, okay. But you should know I don’t observe at all,” I told her, adding, “I even work on Yom Kippur.” I had a flashback to Anne Klein and me, two Jewish girls, pushing racks to Lincoln Center for a show and hearing the shofar (a ram’s-horn trumpet) blowing to signify the end of the holy day. At least we’d known to feel guilty about working. Beth told me that was my business, but years later she revealed sh
e purposely didn’t schedule any outside appointments for me on that highest of holy days. Maybe my future Kabbalah teacher Ruth Rosenberg had sent her to prepare me for what was to come.
Beth came to my apartment for our first meeting, and we met in my bedroom, where I handed her four manila folders stuffed with preliminary research and listed the many jobs we had to fill. “Most critical,” I said, “is that I need a space to design in while we wait for our permanent home. Stephan doesn’t like all these fabric bolts in the apartment.” Until we had a proper office, Beth could set herself up in Takihyo’s conference room, and I could come in for meetings as needed, but I was stuck designing at home.
Designing, of course, was my main focus. Xiomara Grossett, like Jane, was another Anne Klein designer who’d left the company to live in Italy. I heard she was back in New York and called her immediately. Xio is an extraordinary artist—her drawings tell a story of a woman, her clothes, and her attitude, and they perfectly capture the point where art meets design. (That’s her work on this page.) With just a few words and gestures from me, she can create a fully realized illustration of what I have in mind, and take it to the next level. Unlike Jane, Xio could join me right away. We had our third employee.
We worked out of my small den, which had a huge gilt-framed mirror and center chaise. We pinned Xio’s sketches all over the gold-colored walls and created a mood board around them. Working at home in those early months, I got to maximize my time with Gabby, who was ten by then. She loved the commotion and the novelty of having me around with my cool young friends.
Gabby also loved seeing Patti all the time. Patti was the only employee I could safely poach from Anne Klein & Co., as Frank knew she wouldn’t stay once I left. She was set to start after the New Year, but she still came to my apartment for moral support and brainstorming. We had similar taste in clothes, and Patti was one of the friends I wanted to dress in my new collection. We’d also gossip about the industry and whose clothes we loved and whose we didn’t. Patti was the redheaded me. She knew me better than I did myself, and she still does. The fact that our husbands were best friends and motorcycle buddies made it all the more fun. The four of us had planned a ski trip for Christmas together, figuring we’d need that calm before the storm.
—
Our temporary studio was at 80 West 40th Street, and it had double-story ceilings and huge windows facing Bryant Park and the cityscape beyond. Apparently it was the very studio where Liz Claiborne had started her company—a great omen. We threw the space together so quickly there was no time to customize. Alida, Beth, and Patti used built-in cabinets as desks (they had to turn their legs out to the side when they sat). The space’s showpiece was a sleek black kitchen, installed by the previous tenant, an interior designer, which we used as our mini showroom. For our reception desk, Patti brought in a black faux-leather card table and chairs she’d received as a wedding present. And near the center of the room we put two oversized Parsons tables for me and Xio—as well as Jane, who was commuting between New York and her job in Milan. A winding staircase led to a small room where the pattern makers worked. Creatively, I’d never been happier.
“Donna, we need a name already,” Patti fretted one day. “We need to brand ourselves, if only to have a logo for stationery. I’ve been using yellow legal pads—it’s crazy! Who are we?”
“That’ll be your job. Find us a graphic person to create our identity and get us out there in the books,” I said, referring to the fashion magazines. Our business may have been new, but I had been around the fashion block for ten years and knew who and what had to happen. We had already hired a public relations agency, Cristina, Gottfried and Loving, the same one we had used at Anne Klein. The Gottfried was Carolyn Gottfried, a former WWD fashion editor and a good friend of mine from Fire Island. Patti interviewed various branding and image agencies, including a newly formed company named Arnell/Bickford. Peter Arnell had recently done a small project for Dawn at Bergdorf’s, and she adored him. That was the extent of Peter’s fashion experience, but he and I instantly bonded. For me, it’s all about the connection when I meet someone, especially on creative matters. Either it’s there or it isn’t. Peter was physically huge, a barrel of fun. He wore round owl glasses, a white shirt, khakis, and white sneakers. He spoke a million words and spewed a million ideas a minute. We talked for hours, him fueled by a pot of coffee and me by endless refills of my boiled water and lemon. He got me, my message, and the essence of what I wanted to do: dress the day-to-night lifestyle of an urban workingwoman like me with ease and sophistication. Without realizing it, I had written my mission statement.
Now for the name. The obvious thing was to put my name on the label, but it didn’t feel right. It didn’t seem like enough. When you’ve been designing under another name for so long, you feel protected. It’s not you out there; it’s your job. My name felt flimsy in comparison to Anne’s, and I struggled with it. Then one day I saw one of the shoeboxes stacked in our studio’s black kitchen for our upcoming show. Maud Frizon Paris London, it said. Suddenly, it hit me. “Hey, what about Donna Karan New York?” I said it aloud. “Donna Karan New York.” That sounded bigger than I.
I passed it by Peter. “That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard,” he said with a scowl. “What about people who live in LA? What are they supposed to do?”
“Peter, New York is the world,” I told him. “It’s the most international city of all. New York exudes sophistication, modernity, innovation, power, everything I want this label to stand for.” Peter got it then, and he came back with the most inspired portraits of New York I’d ever seen: Black and white. Highly romantic. Blurry views of bridges and passing architecture. There were no clothes and no woman in the images, which was great because we couldn’t afford a model. It was nothing but city views, with “Donna Karan New York” stamped in gold on the bottom. Patti and I were speechless, which doesn’t happen often, trust me.
“This is the customer’s view of her world,” Peter explained. “Speed, light, motion, pure energy. If we can sell Manhattan, communicate the fantasy and the emotion, we show her where the clothes come from. If she relates to this, then she relates to what you’re doing.”
I was struck dumb with joy. If Donna Karan New York was our baby, this portfolio was our birth announcement.
—
It’s hard to describe a million things happening at once, but that was my life in that period. Every morning after I had breakfast with Gabby and kissed Stephan goodbye, my new driver, Marvin, picked me up in the new stretch Lincoln Town Car bought by Takihyo and drove me to the studio. (I had never had a car and driver before, and I was delighted by the idea of slipping into a quiet place all my own, black mug with hot water and lemon in my hand, before facing the office. Marvin, who was with me for years and years, was from North Carolina, and I swear, our relationship was like Driving Ms. Donna. I just adored him.) Once I arrived, the chaos commenced. Phones rang. People dropped in. Fabrics arrived. My days were filled with appointments (with suppliers, stores, and press), and I spent evenings with my design team, Patti, and Peter. He was with us all the time in the early days. I was flying, fueled by adrenaline. I couldn’t believe I was really doing this.
“Donna, I have Women’s Wear on the line,” Patti would call over. “We really need to nail down a date for the photo shoot.”
“Oh my God,” Jane would exclaim from another corner. “This looks so chic. Donna, come see this jacket. You were right about the pitch.”
“I need Donna Karan’s signature over here,” a man in a UPS uniform would say, holding up a box addressed to Donna Karan New York.
“Andrew, get that,” Beth would tell our receptionist. “Donna, pay attention! I need you over here.” Beth kept track of everything and screened visitors. She held the keys to the studio, turned on the lights, paid our bills, and barked orders at all of us. If Patti was my work sister, Beth was my work mother.
And Julie Stern was our father. Frank had loosened
the “no poaching from Anne Klein” rule for him, too, and he became our president. Julie was always exasperated and rolling his eyes, and he was the first to scream when frustrated with me for any reason. He’d met me when I was a kid, and he still saw me as one. One time years before, we’d been flying to Europe on a fabric-buying trip. I was late getting on the plane, and I stopped to ask a seated Julie whether he had any money on him. “Why are you asking?” he said, his bushy eyebrows arching.
“I was rushing and forgot my wallet,” I said. This was pre-ATM days, when airports barely checked IDs.
“You forgot your wallet?” he yelled. “We’re going away for ten days, and you forgot your wallet?” The whole plane was looking at us, but Julie didn’t care.
He reprimanded me in front of my design team all the time, telling me to just choose already between thirty-two shades of black, or insisting that I couldn’t have that divine $200-a-yard, hand-painted, embroidered double-faced cashmere, no matter how much I wanted it. Julie reported to Frank, so there was a level of accountability—but not too much. For all his bluster, Julie was a softy and a very endearing man.
We set up the business and designed the first collection simultaneously in early 1985. We were scheduled to move to our new showroom at 550 Seventh Avenue and show the very same week in May, just over four months away. The mere thought of it was enough to make me hyperventilate.
—
Black. The color that does it all. It’s sophisticated, says New York, looks good on everyone, goes seamlessly from day into evening, matches everything, doesn’t get dirty, travels well, sets a canvas for jewelry, erases extra pounds, and allows a woman’s skin and personality to shine. Do I need to go on? I will anyway. You never regret buying a good black piece. It is timeless, seasonless, and ageless, and it looks right anywhere in the world. To me, it’s a uniform you put on and don’t have to think about again.
