by Donna Karan
Creatively, black lets a designer—this designer—focus solely on silhouette, shape, and proportion. For my first collection, black was the solution to many a problem. We had the several bolts of black crepe I’d fallen in love with in Italy. Then we ordered a ton of black wool jersey to use as our muslin (the raw fabric designers typically use to create prototypes). I loved using jersey because it had a natural stretch. In fact, I loved it so much that we kept it in the finished line.
Our design mission was perfection, not quantity. I wanted a concise wardrobe. Whatever the piece, it had to be perfect, the only one of that kind you’d need. That was key, because I wanted fewer pieces that could do more things: an entire day-into-evening wardrobe in seven easy pieces. Each item had to be flexible and ready to shift in attitude and purpose, depending on what you teamed it with. It had to have a mix of masculine and feminine, because there’s nothing sexier than a woman in a man’s jacket, coat, shirt, or sweater. And it had to accentuate the positive and delete the negative, because that gives you confidence. And for the urban woman, confidence was power.
I called them my seven “easy” pieces, but let’s be clear: designing them was anything but.
THE FIRST SEVEN EASY PIECES
1. The bodysuit. The foundation, the base, the starting point. Put it on, and you were dressed—whether you added a pant or a skirt, a jacket or a sweater. Inspired by my love of yoga and dance, the bodysuit ensured sleekness underneath it all. We came up with a perfectly fitted crewneck and a turtleneck, both in either jersey or cashmere. How did you go to the bathroom, you wonder? Three snaps at the crotch—a huge improvement over my Danskins.
Alternatively, we had a white body blouse—a sensuous, feminine take on a man’s big white shirt. Chic and feminine in glossy charmeuse, it had a notch collar and folded cuffs. The white lit up the face and accented all the black. The plunging V elongated the neck, while a bodysuit bottom kept the neckline in place.
Tights finished the foundation. Jane and I found our dream version in Italy, made by a woman who had set up a small factory in her garage. They were the most opaque tights we’d ever seen. When paired with the bodysuit, you were covered—literally. If your skirt accidentally opened or rode up (when getting out of a car, for instance), no problem.
Why so dark? Because I wanted one long line from head to toe, with no distractions. Not only is the effect slimming, it directs all the attention where it should be: on the face, the woman, the personality. Dark legs also deleted the leg issue. So many women are self-conscious about their legs—they’re too short, too heavy, too skinny, too whatever. These tights eliminated all of that angst.
2. The wrap-and-tie skirt. This was Jane’s idea. It had to be tailored in a way that would slim and elongate the body. I’ve always pegged skirts (narrowed the cut as you get closer to the knee) because it makes you look slimmer. I can’t tell you how much time we spent on this skirt to make it look effortless. Xio was the only one who could make the wrap as flat as I could, so she was called in to dress the models for every presentation. We also had a pencil skirt. Wear it with the matching bodysuit, add a wide contoured croc belt at the waist (which covered the waistband) and you had a dress. Minimal. Luxurious. Genius.
3. The pants. Women never like how they look in pants, myself included. They worry about their hips, their stomachs, their butts. I was determined to change that. We offered a choice of two: classic trousers inspired by menswear, and pull-on pencil pants that went straight to the ankle. Cut in my favorite crepe, either was incredibly slimming. With the matching bodysuit and contoured belt, you had a jumpsuit. And for the most fashion-forward look of all, wrap the skirt over the pull-on pants. (This cut down on luggage weight, too.)
4. The jacket. I was a tailor’s daughter, so I knew precision. Whether in black crepe or camel cashmere, ours were sensually tailored to the body. Since women shoulder so much in their lives, I wanted to give them an authoritative shoulder. I also wanted a strong lapel, a sculpted torso, a forward slouch, and pockets perfectly arched on the hip. Our jacket was long enough to skim the hips and stomach, but not so long they’d truncate the legs. Despite the structure, I wanted to infuse a sweater-like sensuality and ease to how it felt on the body. Hours and hours later, after many trials and many errors, we got there. This was a jacket you never needed or wanted to take off—it was that comfortable.
5. The suede wrap jacket. This piece gave the lineup a sporty kick. In vicuña suede, the waist-length jacket had a long notch lapel, a drape front, and raglan sleeves. You could wear it with the pants, over the skirt, or with your own jeans—it didn’t matter. To me, skin on skin is as essential as a touch of cashmere. It adds a sexy dimension and texture to an urban wardrobe. I’ve never done a collection without a suede or leather jacket of some sort, whether a sleek biker or a cozy shearling. (This vicuña suede went on to be one of the notes in my first fragrance.)
6. The camel coat. To me, a coat is a wardrobe essential, not an afterthought. Based on the classic trench, this coat was a mix of masculine and feminine. The shoulders were strong, the sleeves were raglan (so you could throw it over a jacket), and a self-belt nipped the waist with attitude. We went for a goldish camel cashmere. It was timeless, and a warm accent against all the black, white, and gray in our line. Just like gold jewelry.
7. The gold sequined skirt. This evening element was key. You needed a piece that could transform any of the above into evening, whether you were headed to a dinner party or a gala. Gold sequins did it for me. It was our wrap skirt, only cut to the floor. Wear it over the bodysuit, add some striking oversized jewelry, and you had a modern take on a sequined ball gown.
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There were more pieces: A fabulous swing coat. A draped, wrap-front tunic. A cuffed at the hip full skirt. Sensuous evening dresses. But those seven were the core essentials, the chic and easy uniform you turned into a wardrobe. Structure was kept to a minimum, which was unusual for the day; I wanted everything to wear like a second skin, with nothing pulling at you as you moved. It was a new kind of classicism—like a man’s wardrobe, but tailored for a strong woman. Just like those suits my father had made for my mother.
Last, I added a personal touch. Given my love of art, I wanted a true artistic stroke to accent the clothes. It had to be expressive—not just jewelry, but a marriage of fabric and metal, of soft and strong. At Anne Klein, I had worked with the jeweler Robert Lee Morris and felt deeply connected to his sensual, tribal sculpture. There was nothing fashiony about it. Every element had a touch of warrior goddess, just like my vision of the urban woman.
When I approached Robert about collaborating with me on my new venture, his face lit up. He opened up his jewelry cases for me, and I played for hours. It was like Christmas, me pulling out piece after piece and exclaiming, “More of this!” and “This, only bigger, bolder!” He had huge gold pearls, disc cuffs, ropes of segmented snakes. I envisioned metal slice belts and hand-sculpted buckles. These gold pieces would define the simple clothes, and the combination of black and gold would become the Donna Karan New York signature. Our partnership felt destined.
We had a personal connection as well. Like me, Robert is a young soul with a childlike enthusiasm for creating. I knew this from working with him at Anne Klein. Robert works from the gut; he’s a true sculptor who brings the primitive to the modern. Neither of us can stand a structured environment. We collaborate intuitively, loving the process of me wrapping the body with fabric and him molding just the right organic metal piece to light it up.
To those key elements we added a dramatic, organically shaped felt hat by the milliner Maeve Carr, as well as jersey head wraps accented with an RLM pin. We finished with a contour croc belt, simple suede pumps to continue the line set by the matte jersey fabric and matte tights, suede gloves, and the perfect leather workbag—big enough to hold everything you need for your day and sleek enough to become part of your body. We made a cashmere blanket to throw over your shoulder by day and wrap around
you at night (or to use as a blanket on a plane or in your hotel room). We thought all of these clothes, jewelry statements, and accessories would be small in wholesale volume, almost like limited edition pieces. We had no idea what was to come.
We were on our way. It was exhilarating to create something so special, modern, and right on every level. Everything I had done in my life had brought me to this moment. It almost didn’t matter if anyone else agreed. In my mind, these were the clothes I was born to design, the pure essence of what I wanted to say. I had experienced a huge creative breakthrough, one that would shape the rest of my career.
Credit 12.1
13
SHOW TIME
“Hi, darling. I’m only in town for the day, so let’s meet up.” It was Sonja Caproni, my fashion merchandiser friend from I. Magnin in San Francisco.
Busy as I was, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to spend time with Sonja, who was passing through New York on her way to the shows in Milan. A dead ringer for Sophia Loren, Sonja was sophisticated and worldly. She was also incredibly supportive: At a recent Anne Klein trunk show, I had confided to her that I was thinking about designing my own collection. “Do it, Donna!” she’d said encouragingly. She went so far as to present me an open order form with her signature on it, saying, “We will buy whatever you design.”
Sonja and I went to the Whitney Museum, which was showing a Jonathan Borofsky exhibit called “All is One.” Borofsky is an American sculptor who specializes in multimedia exhibits. Everything in this show was three-dimensional. Instead of passively looking at the art, we interacted with it, walking around and under it, listening to it, experiencing it. It was incredibly modern. I told Sonja, “I want my show to be exactly like this!”
“Speaking of which, how’s the design going?” Sonja asked.
“Come back and see for yourself,” I said. “You’ll be the first.” I trusted Sonja and was eager to get an early opinion.
“This is just so, so chic,” she exclaimed later, seated in our little black kitchen. She loved it, I could tell. I asked her to try on the bodysuit, which fit her beautifully.
“Take it, take it,” I insisted. “Wear it in Europe.”
Sonja wasn’t gone for more than half an hour before Julie started yelling at me. “What are you, crazy? You gave her the key piece of the collection, and she’s off to Europe? Get it back, now!”
Sonja went to Europe without the bodysuit, but she told everyone how much she loved what I’d shown her. Word of mouth is everything in fashion, so the phone immediately started ringing with requests to preview the collection. Despite the buzz, every time someone sat in our little black kitchen with our fit models Gina and Doreen, it felt as if we were handing them an exclusive. We were such a start-up that we had to show the clothes just feet from where we were actually designing them. It was like presenting dinner in your kitchen; there was nowhere to hide. So we did our best to make it look professional, even elegant. Patti schlepped in her good china, silverware, and linen napkins. Beth scrambled to order lunches in advance. Alida picked up flowers from the Korean deli on the corner. And Andrew, our receptionist, would run out and get fresh fruit to cut up and present on one of Patti’s platters. To prepare for a visit from Bergdorf Goodman, my retail holy grail, Patti called Ira Neimark’s office—he was the store’s CEO and chairman—to ask what he’d like for lunch. “He loves chicken pot pie,” was the answer. Beth went to two delis to find just the right one. Forget fancy catering; we could barely cover the electric bills.
On April 5, 1985, a month before our show, Women’s Wear Daily officially previewed the collection in a cover story:
The (Very) First Look at Donna Karan
In a salute to sensuality, Donna Karan is creating a fall collection that embodies the spirit and luxury she’s always wanted. For her first collection, Karan hasn’t forsaken her taste for the tailored, but she’s added a fluid body-consciousness that is consummately feminine.
The cover photo was of Doreen and another model in head-to-toe signature looks, complete with hats and Robert’s jewelry, standing in front of our big window with the city behind them. Inside was a double spread of the whole collection. That’s all it took. Poor Patti and our public relations agency were inundated with pleas, threats, and ultimatums from people who wanted to attend our show. The match was struck.
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Just days before the show, we moved into our new home, which had been designed by architect Nicholas Goldsmith. Nothing said we’d arrived more than moving into 550 Seventh Avenue. All the big names were headquartered there: Oscar, Ralph, Bill Blass, Geoffrey Beene, and Karl Lagerfeld. The only ones missing were the Kleins—Calvin and Anne—who had too many floors at 205 West 39th to ever leave. At 550 Seventh, the fourteenth floor happened to be available, so we grabbed it. (It was really the thirteenth floor, which I considered yet another great omen, as my apartment was also on the thirteenth floor.)
The space was still under construction. Our fourteen employees literally carried their things from 80 West 40th, each of them making several trips. Beth rented dollies for the heavy boxes and enlisted some Anne Klein friends to help with the Parsons tables. Julie and his wife, Nina, arrived with a paper bag of cleaning supplies and wiped the chrome tables and chairs with Windex. This was quintessential Julie. He was the president of our new company, but he was also the most unpretentious man who ever lived.
Imagine us laying out the clothes, fitting the models, trying music, and working on seating plans while workers completed the bleachers and platforms in our three connecting showrooms. We added a graphic, architectural touch of white stretch fabric across the ceilings, a look similar to what Stephan had done at that Anne Klein fall show years ago. The effect was very intimate, like a cocoon. The crew finished at one-thirty in the morning on the day of the show. We were all still there, of course. I went home an hour or two later, long enough to lie down in bed for a bit, hug Stephan, and get Gabby off to school. Marvin came for me at 7:00 a.m.
On Friday, May 3, 1985, my copy of Women’s Wear Daily was waiting for me in the car, and we had made the cover. “Karan Today,” it announced over a shot of a model wearing our cashmere knit bustier evening dress against our white scrim. This was it.
Inspired by Borofsky’s exhibit, I had all the models lounging on the different platforms in nothing but bodysuits. When everyone was seated, the girls started getting dressed, adding layer upon layer. The clothes came alive right in front of the audience. The whole thing was a blur for me—I was backstage, just trying to remember not to forget anything. It ended with what would become our signature show song: Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind.”
This time, as I walked the runway—really a meandering aisle through the three rooms—I wasn’t the only one crying. The audience was, too. Stephan. Frank. Tomio. Uncle Burt. Dawn from Bergdorf’s. Grace Mirabella, then Vogue’s editor in chief. Polly Mellen, the legendary fashion editor and stylist. Carrie Donovan from the New York Times Magazine. The audience gave me a teary standing ovation that seemed to last forever. We had three shows that day—the rooms were tiny—and each one ended the same way. In that moment, even my deepest insecurities couldn’t eclipse the fact that I’d been universally accepted and validated.
That night Stephan and I hosted a small dinner party in our apartment for our employees, family, and closest friends. At 10:55, Patti and Ilene took a taxi to a newsstand on Second Avenue to pick up the next day’s New York Times. I noticed Patti’s water-filled blue eyes as soon as they returned.
Donna Karan Stars on Her Own
by Bernadine Morris
Pandemonium broke loose after the last three models appeared in their sultry black cashmere evening dresses with strapless tops or midriff cutouts. Everyone in the showroom was trying to touch, kiss and congratulate Donna Karan. Closely linked to the Anne Klein organization for all of her working life, the designer introduced the first collection under her own name yesterday. It was an immediate smash hi
t.
Women’s Wear Daily called my show the “highlight of the Seventh Avenue season…New York fashion at its most sophisticated,” and described the collection as “sheer perfection.” The headline in the Chicago Tribune read, “Karan’s First Collection: An Instant Hit.”
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The madness that followed was even more extreme than after my first solo show at Anne Klein. My life was a flurry of interviews, shoots, magazine exclusives, store meetings, and negotiations with my partners. I wanted to keep things exclusive and sell only to Bergdorf’s and Neiman Marcus, and maybe Brown’s in London. But Frank told me we had to sell to the other big stores because we were tied to Anne Klein. If we can’t buy Donna Karan, the retailers said, we won’t buy Anne Klein. (Fashion can be very political.) We weren’t set up to produce all those clothes, so we scrambled to source more and devised a rollout strategy to give a little bit to one store one week and a little to another store another week. The system was far from perfect, and retailers were far from satisfied, but we managed to sell that first collection in 120 of the most prestigious stores in the country, including Bloomingdale’s, I. Magnin, and Saks Fifth Avenue; Saks put us in eleven of their forty-one stores.
I had a very specific vision for our retail space. I insisted that stores give us head-to-toe boutiques with everything we made—clothes, handbags, shoes, jewelry, hosiery—in one place. I didn’t want my customer to have to schlep off to different departments to complete a look. None of the big stores was happy about this; they want to sell shoes in the shoe department and handbags in the handbag department. This led to lots of negotiations and headaches, but in the end, we were able to stake our claim.
I was feeling my way forward. I had been a designer, not a businesswoman, and this was a whole new world. Once I came in and sat at Alida’s desk, which faced Patti’s, and started opening the pile of mail in front of me.
