by Donna Karan
To kick off our new brand, Peter handed out T-shirts emblazoned with the DKNY logo. It was couture to me, an exclusive peek into a club before it opened. Boy, did I love that T-shirt; I wore mine every day. It made everything look young and fresh.
From the beginning, I saw DKNY as a family collection, for women, men, kids, dogs, everyone. One night, I was telling Stephan over dinner that I planned to do a DKNY men’s collection, and he stopped me. “You can’t open a DKNY menswear until you do a Donna Karan New York men’s collection.”
“Why not?”
“Because once you go cheap, you can’t come back expensive.”
I have no idea how he intuitively knew that, but he was right: you design from your top line down, not the other way around. We had to do Donna Karan New York menswear before DKNY menswear. So I scrapped the coed thing—for the time being, anyway.
For DKNY, Jane and I started with a woman’s essential seven easy pieces of street style. It was everything you needed to look modern and classic, sexy, and sporty. Most important, the pieces invited personalization. No two women would wear them the same way.
DKNY: THE SEVEN EASY STREET PIECES
1. Jeans. I wanted two kinds: sexy and comfortable. The sexy jeans curved to the waist, hugged the hips and thighs, and elongated the legs. The comfortable pair had a relaxed boyfriend cut. We did two washes, light and dark. We probably went through two dozen pairs before we landed on our first prototypes. It helped that Jane and I had entirely different styles and bodies (she slim and me curvy). Our goal was to make them look and feel great on all shapes and sizes.
2. The boyfriend blazer. We all steal clothes from the men in our lives, especially blazers, since anything masculine looks extra sexy on a woman. Cut in navy gabardine, ours was roomy but not gigantic. And—this was key—we refused to make a matching skirt. Instead we did paper-bag pants (with a full waist, purposely cinched in with a belt so they looked like men’s pants). The last thing I wanted to make was a workingwoman’s wardrobe. This was a jacket to throw over jeans.
3. The T-Shirt. Ours was a white canvas for the logo, something to be worn as an underlayer or on its own. We did skinny-ribbed muscle tanks and racer backs, as well as classic and oversized tees. We even did a tank bodysuit.
4. The jumpsuit. I love jumpsuits. They combine the one-stop ease of a dress with the sportiness of pants. (When Gabby was a kid in camp, she was so embarrassed when her fashion designer mom showed up in denim overalls.) The first DKNY jumpsuit was inspired by the utilitarian uniform of street workers. Lots of pockets to hold your stuff. Wear it over the T-shirt. Undo the top half and tie the sleeves around your waist (which is how I still wear it today.) I loved its casual, cool vibe.
5. The jumper dress. Our short denim dress was as young and sexy as it was casual. This one had a modified overall top, hence the “jumper” name. You could wear it with a T-shirt or bare it with nothing at all. You could funk it up with sneakers by day and dress it up with killer heels by night.
6. The trench. Jane and I loved trenches—for attitude, not rain. They’re sexy and strong. This was DKNY’s answer to Collection’s camel cashmere coat.
7. The anorak. When you live in a city, you live in an anorak. It’s your staple for traveling, walking the dog, running out to the store. You need the hood, the pockets, the all-weather fabric. Ours was utilitarian, with DKNY touches like stamped hardware and rubber zip pulls.
Unlike Donna Karan New York, DKNY had dozens of other pieces. It wasn’t a concise, seven-pieces-only type of thing; it was more like, “Here are the tools—choose what feels good.” We didn’t have shoes, so we showed everything with a white Keds sneaker. DKNY later became known for its sneakers of every variety: neoprene, mesh, reflective, open, wedged, heeled, you name it. In the early 1990s, we were among the first to make a high-heeled platform sneaker.
I loved DKNY from the get-go. It spoke to my inner hippie and made me feel liberated and natural. I also adored designing with Jane and her team. We brought in Lynn Kohlman (my model and photographer friend) as fashion director, and she gave it that androgynous edge. We scored with DKNY’s business team, too. We interviewed more than a dozen executives and were just about to sign with someone when I acted on a hunch. I heard Ralph Lauren had a great women’s sales leader named Denise Seegal, and I called her directly.
“Hi, this is Donna Karan. I’d love to meet with you to discuss a new collection we’re introducing.”
“Great,” she said. “Is there a day you have in mind?”
“Yes, today. In five minutes.”
Denise was totally Ralph: blond, petite, classic, and a thirty-four-year-old Harvard graduate. She started by reminding me that we had spoken about this concept two years prior.
Huh?
“We were in Henry Lehr on the Upper East Side, trying on jeans,” she said. “You were struggling to get yours up, and you looked at me and said, ‘Hi, I’m Donna Karan, and I hate you.’ Then you told me how you were determined to open a company that would feature jeans designed for a woman.”
“That sounds like me!” I laughed.
Then we talked sales strategy. For such a small and proper woman, Denise had balls. She wasn’t afraid to ask for anything. Her bravado was just what we needed. The only issue was that she didn’t wear DKNY, something that I pointed out and she didn’t deny. As president, she wanted to look professional. I guess when you’re blond and petite in the business world, you need the heels and authority of a Donna Karan New York. But I still kidded her about it.
Denise hired the best team imaginable: Stefani Greenfield (who later founded Scoop), Brigitte Kleine (who went on to become president of Tory Burch), and Paula Sutter (who headed up Diane von Furstenberg), as well as Mary Wang (who eventually became Denise’s successor). The same year we hired Denise, 1989, we hired a very young Angela Ahrendts to be our new president of sales at Donna Karan Collection. Angela went on to lead Burberry with Christopher Bailey and now works at Apple, leading their retail and online sales. We had a knack for catching rising stars.
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Our DKNY shows exploded with energy. The first one was held in the Donna Karan New York showroom at 550 Seventh Avenue in the fall of 1988. Our windows framed the skyline, and we had the DKNY logo emblazoned in skywriting above it. (We also blanketed the streets with our logo tees, handing out hundreds to messengers, taxicab drivers, and street vendors.) Seventy-five models stood on platforms of every height, like the buildings of the city—moving, dancing, and hanging out to the beat of the music. Like the streets of New York, the room was ridiculously overcrowded, with photographers clamoring to get their shots. The collective spirit said it all.
A few seasons later, in 1991, the theme of the show was family. We had all the supermodels, but we also had my daughters Gabby and Lisa, now ages seventeen and twenty-six, who walked down the runway together. Stephan came out with our first granddaughter, Mackensie, on his shoulders. Lynn’s young son Sam was there, and he and Mackensie became the poster kids for DKNY. Two future stars (and child models at the time), Lindsay Lohan, five, and Kirsten Dunst, nine, were also in the show. (Lindsay also starred in one of our ad campaigns.) We had dogs, including a bulldog owned by Linda Beauchamp, who eventually headed up our menswear. I wanted to express that DKNY was all about family, friends, and fun.
Though we launched at Saks, I was anxious to get into Bloomingdale’s, the quintessential New York store. (Even the queen of England had thought so, remember?) At first, Marvin Traub wanted to give us a fourth-floor space with the other bridge collections. “It’s dead up there,” Denise told him. “We want the energy of the third floor’s East Ender, and we want to be the first thing you see when you get off the elevator—a celebration of New York via DKNY.” More than twenty-five years later, we’re still there.
We launched in seven major U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, Dallas, and Chicago, and each time we brought a bit of New York flavor with us, like an actual hot dog cart or popcorn mach
ine. We went global at the same time, opening in Japan (thanks to Tomio), Harvey Nichols in London, Trudie Goetz in Switzerland, and Joyce in Hong Kong. From day one, revenues poured in. Frank called it “our rocket,” and it was. Within two years, we were constantly creating and launching new divisions: DKNY Jeans and DKNY Accessories. Then DKNY Hosiery (but of course), DKNY Shoes, DKNY Kids, DKNY Eyes, and eventually DKNY Men’s, DKNY Active, DKNY Watches, DKNY Fragrances, DKNY Swim, DKNY Underwear, DKNY Home, DKNY Infants and Toddlers, and DKNY Men’s Tailoring. We even did DKK9 for dogs.
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I’m often asked what it takes to be successful. My answer is, don’t think about success. Do something you believe in, something that speaks to your needs, your lifestyle, and your passions. The minute you focus on what you think will make money, you’re sunk. Donna Karan New York and DKNY were answers to what I needed. If I had ever sat down with a business strategist and said I wanted to create a collection around a bodysuit and a wrap skirt, they would have thought I was crazy. Over the years I’ve clashed with many an executive, and now I realized why: they look to the past. We did really well with this, Donna. Can you give us an updated version? Maybe in a new color? Designers look to the future. They give you what you don’t have—or didn’t know you need. When Denise’s sales staff would worry that they couldn’t sell one of our edgier looks, she’d tell them, “God didn’t make you a designer. You’re a salesperson, so sell it.” Exactly.
DKNY launched many iconic styles, including the sexy neoprene scuba dress, the “FedEx paper” dress, and my favorite, the Cozy. The Cozy was originally designed by Jane and Lindsay Ackroyd for Pure DKNY, a division that embraced the Zen side of DKNY with cotton and cashmere yoga-inspired clothes. They created the Cozy as a half sweater, half scarf that a woman could tie in different ways or just let hang loose. No one quite got it, and like the Cold Shoulder, it was shoved to the back of the discards. One day Anjali Lewis, who worked in marketing, pulled out the sample and wore it to work. (Maybe she was cold—who knows?) DKNY’s president, Mary Wang, noticed it, loved it, and put it in the main line. The minute I saw it, I wanted one in every color—okay, really just in black and in white cashmere—and since then, we’ve sold tens of thousands of them. Maybe we should be going through our discard closets regularly.
DKNY was born in NYC and lived on its streets. Our ads were shot in Central Park, on the Brooklyn Bridge, in front of Broadway theaters, going into a subway, standing on a subway train. Early on, we featured our signature model Rosemary, but always in a family context or with her “husband” Peter. Later, we used other models, often in groups, to show this wasn’t just one look or one woman.
Our message was out there, but we wanted something even bigger. Peter Arnell came through once again. “A seven-story-high billboard in SoHo,” he said, showing us a prototype. “It’ll be fantastic, huge. Just the logo with a montage of the city within the letters. We’ll put it in other locations, but this will be the big one, the one they remember.” And it was. That mural became our flag. Just recently, when we collaborated with the ever-gorgeous Cara Delevingne on a capsule collection for DKNY, she told us, “When I first came to New York City and saw the DKNY mural on Houston Street, I was wowed. To me, DKNY was New York.”
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Ironically, we opened our first DKNY flagship store in London. In 1994, Christina Ong, the global hotelier and fashion retailer, came to us with a London store opportunity for Donna Karan New York. But the minute I saw the raw Old Bond Street industrial space, I knew that it wasn’t right for Collection, but it was perfect for DKNY. This was our first freestanding retail store, so we obsessed over every detail. We installed a floor-to-ceiling glass storefront and packed the interior with color and personality.
The most surreal moment came the night before the store’s opening, when everyone was making last-minute tweaks. “Patti, why does this place feel so empty?” I asked. “Did we not bring enough clothes?” Then it hit me: the sidewalk-style café bar was missing! It was supposed to be a focal point of the store, a slice of New York in London. A whole corner of the store was empty! Fortunately, the bar showed up at five in the morning, and went on to be famous for serving the best salad in London.
DKNY stores quickly multiplied. With Christina and other retail partners, we opened in Manchester, England; Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Singapore; Hong Kong; the Philippines; Bangkok, Thailand; Tokyo, Japan; Montreal, Canada; and, in the States, in Huntington, New York; Las Vegas, Nevada; Costa Mesa, California; Cherry Creek, Colorado; and Short Hills, New Jersey. I could go on, but you get the idea.
We finally opened our DKNY Madison Avenue flagship in 1999 on the corner of 60th Street. Up until this point, we had been very focused on the wholesale business, selling to stores like Bloomingdale’s, and this would be our first wholly owned and operated store. I wanted the shopping experience to be as eclectic as our brand, so in addition to clothes, the 16,000-square-foot space housed a marketplace with a café, a flower stand, and a vintage shop. We sold books, furniture, and baby strollers, and even had a Ducati motorcycle as a prop. We put a mirrored wall up in the store to reflect the traffic and bustle of the street. And most dramatically, since it was a corner store, we cut the entrance of the building on the bias to create a sense of welcome and openness. By now, I was also deep into my “woo-woos” (more on that later) and had a feng shui expert come and clear out any bad energy. He didn’t like the front door and suggested we hang a cluster of sage above it, as well as soften all the sharp edges with greenery and introduce some essential oils throughout the store. Patti rolled her eyes, of course.
Everyone thought we were nuts to open up across from Calvin Klein and all the other luxe designers on the street, but I didn’t care because our store was so different. It was fun and over the top. I remember seeing salespeople from Calvin looking out their windows and staring, as if they were thinking, What’s she up to now? or maybe Now she’s really lost it. Once again, I was following my instincts. DKNY was home at last on the streets of NYC, and everything about it felt right—and was right. I couldn’t have been happier.
Credit 15.1
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NEW YORK STATE OF MIND
My life those days was 99 percent work, 1 percent play. I still tried to run home to make dinner every night, but more often than not, Stephan, Gabby, and I would meet at our favorite Italian restaurant, Sette Mezzo on Lexington Avenue at 70th Street, just a block from our apartment. (That’s assuming Gabby hadn’t already had lunch there with friends. She used to take her whole high school there on our credit card, right after they’d all raided our closets.)
Stephan and I tried not to let anything interfere with our weekends with Gabby, Lisa, and Corey. We were still renting on Fire Island in the summer, and we’d go on ski trips at Christmastime. But otherwise, we were working around the clock.
It was a challenge to keep up with our success while still trying to plan ahead. The year we introduced DKNY, our sales more than doubled, jumping from $40 million to $100 million. A year later, in 1990, the CFDA once again named me womenswear designer of the year. I was thrilled, but I was also scared to death. In my mind, the higher you climbed, the further you had to fall. My answer, as it always had been when I felt out of control, was to work, work, work.
The company culture was shifting. We had more “suits” walking around than ever. One night Beth, my executive assistant for the past six years—the one who observed the Sabbath—came into my office and resigned. We had long since hired someone to supplement her on Fridays and Saturdays, but we still couldn’t keep her. She found an executive position at Hadassah, the Jewish women’s organization. “Beth, you will always have a job here,” I said, hugging her. “I mean it. If you ever get bored at Häagen-Dazs, just call me.” (I’ve always had trouble with names.)
As my co-CEO, Stephan was the brand’s creative visionary. It was his idea to change our name from the Donna Karan Company t
o Donna Karan International. He never saw us as just a Seventh Avenue label; he saw us as a far-reaching global brand, similar to Chanel, Inc. But we still needed to operate the day-to-day business, and operations were not Stephan’s focus.
Right before launching DKNY, we approached Steve Ruzow to be our chief operating officer. Steve had been running the active-wear division at Warnaco, the American corporation known for underwear, sportswear, and swimwear, including licensees such as Calvin Klein, Chaps, and Speedo. We’d met him when he was at Gottex, where his wife, Miriam, was president of Gottex NY and principal in its parent company. The four of us had become friendly. Stephan and I loved his mixture of warmth and professionalism. We wanted to keep a family atmosphere, however big we grew.
“Steve, the world wants us. They’re lining up every day,” Stephan told Steve the night we set out to recruit him. “But our back end isn’t keeping up with our front. We can’t make the clothes fast enough, and we’re delivering practically in season instead of in advance.” Steve took the job and proved perfect for us because he was organized, strategic, always thinking ahead, and very no-nonsense. He was also a big-picture type, taking us from one warehouse in New Jersey to five. Steve established global production and distribution channels for Collection, DKNY, and our accessories. To streamline our Asian business, he set up Donna Karan Hong Kong, Donna Karan Japan, and Donna Karan Korea. Next he established Donna Karan Italy and a distribution center in the Netherlands. Steve traveled all over the world, making sure our offices were consistent and that the right people were in place. It was mind-boggling to think about all the pieces in this puzzle.
