by Donna Karan
While we renovated, Stephan found us an interim rental in SoHo at 42 Wooster Street, near where Gabby lived on Broome Street. I loved living downtown. The whole vibe was so me: young, carefree, unpretentious, artsy. Whenever I proposed to Stephan that we should consider buying in the area, I got a don’t-even-think-about-it look.
—
Dominic and I got to work on the new place. The timing was good, because we were also creating our first Collection store in New York City, at 819 Madison Avenue, so he could source for both at the same time.
For years, it had killed me that our only Donna Karan New York store was in London. I wanted one in New York, the city where the label was born. Given our stagnating stock values, the board of directors refused to consider financing one, so I did it myself, against everyone’s counsel, including Stephan’s. He had a cow every time I brought it up. Trey and Dominic found a great location, a limestone townhouse on Madison Avenue at 68th Street, the former Versace store. Maria Napoli, one of my favorite psychics, tried to talk me out of it because she didn’t like the street address, but my gut told me to keep going. The good part about paying for it myself was that I got to do what I wanted. The awkward layout required a total gut renovation. Once the demolition got going, they discovered there was an outdoor space that had been walled off from the store—a garden! I envisioned a serene oasis, a place where you could leave the city behind. Design-wise, I wanted air, light, and water, so we installed an indoor-outdoor water garden, with bamboo for privacy. I loved that you could hear the ripple of water in the middle of the city. Dominic and Trey went to work on the interiors: lots of limestone, floating black walls, gold accents—all our signatures. (I envisioned a café, too, but to my frustration, we found out that regulations prohibited it.)
I planned to sell clothes and accessories, of course, and have a cashmere shop. But I was most excited about the artisan market: a place to sell the handmade treasures I found around the world, plus gorgeous vintage pieces and capsule collections from designers I believed in. Sadly, Stephan couldn’t physically share in my excitement because the construction dust was too much for his compromised lungs. (If he knew how much I was spending, it probably would have been too much for his heart, too.) I took photos of everything and reported back to him every night at Wooster Street.
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“You must come to San Francisco.” It was Dominic on the line, the excitement in his voice palpable. “There’s this exhibit you’ll love—the Japanese master sculptor Izumi Masatoshi. I promise it will be worth the trip.”
He was right. I was moved to tears by the beauty of Masatoshi’s stonework. Two chairs, titled “Breath,” spoke to me in particular. I desperately wanted them for the apartment and bought them on the spot. When I got home, I showed Stephan photos.
“Beautiful,” he agreed, “but how do you expect to keep them in the apartment?”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re solid stone,” he said, his voice rising. “They will literally crash through the floor!”
I hadn’t thought of that. “Okay, let’s put them into the new store.”
“And how do you plan to get them into the store?”
They must have weighed a ton each, so we had to have a crane hoist them over the building and into their new home in the rock garden, where they were the perfect centerpiece.
“Once you get them in there,” Stephan warned, “they’ll never leave.” Never say never. Sad to say, the store closed in 2014; now those chairs sit in my East Hampton yard. I’m still miffed I can’t have them in my apartment.
—
There’s a phrase, “living with cancer,” and that’s exactly what Stephan and I were doing. He was holding up surprisingly well. We adjusted our lifestyle: no more trips to Canyon Ranch or out west skiing, and we ditched a plan to buy a home in Sun Valley, as the altitude was too high. We traveled to Parrot Cay instead, staying at our friend Christina Ong’s Como Shambhala hotel, the Turks and Caicos version of her resort we loved so much in Bali. Stephan worked just about every day at his studio on a series he named, appropriately, “Living on the Edge,” composed of seven bronze figures, each perched on construction beams, captured in a moment of suspense. Our lives felt like that, though I did my best to suppress my anxiety about the future. But one morning I just couldn’t hold it in, and so I let the tears flow. Boy, did Stephan get mad. “Why are you crying?” he yelled. “Because I’m sick? So what. None of us know what the future holds. You could get hit by a truck tomorrow. I’m here now, Donna, right in front of you.” And he was. But so was my worst fear: losing the love of my life, my rock.
That night, he came home with two new watercolor paintings he’d made for me and placed in the bedroom, at the foot of our bed, so I would see them first thing in the morning. One was a plus sign in sunny yellow, the other a minus sign in black. “You can look at life either way, Donna,” he said. “It’s your choice, remember that.” Those paintings are still the first thing I see when I wake up.
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During this whole period, Stephan was busy planning the future of the company. Ever since we’d gone public and he got his diagnosis, I was constantly saying to him, “You can’t leave me with this,” referring to the shareholders, the board of directors, and the other headaches of running a public company. David Bressman, who had been Donna Karan International’s general counsel, was now our lawyer, working for Stephan directly. David brought in Gail Zauder, a managing director at Credit Suisse First Boston, and the three went to work, looking for a solution to our public company problem.
“It’s the kind of problem,” David would say, “that requires surgery, not medicine.”
I wasn’t part of the negotiations that led to us being acquired by LVMH Moët Hennessy–Louis Vuitton, but I was thrilled. LVMH was the holy grail of luxury goods, with the expertise, resources, and global scale we needed to take our company forward. On a personal and creative level, I couldn’t help remembering that one of our first photo shoots had had Rosemary coming off a plane loaded down with luggage. All I could think was, Yes! Finally, we’ll have a proper luggage collection!
Stephan had me flying to Paris for so many meetings that my friend Bonnie Young was convinced I was having an affair because I refused to say why I needed to leave our Milan fabric trips for quick, overnight jaunts to France. The minute I met Yves Carcelle, the president of LVMH Fashion Group, I was hooked. He had this amazing Buddha in his house, and I was convinced our partnership was destined. At one point, to ensure that our discussions were private, we brought Yves to Como Shambhala in Parrot Cay. We were all sworn to secrecy. Even me, with my famous lack of filter, understood that you didn’t mess around when it came to a public company. I didn’t tell a soul, not even Patti.
When I returned to New York, Patti came into my office and said, “Donna, I had the oddest experience. I went to this new psychic named Susan King. She told me that a good friend, wearing a similar ponytail to mine only with dark hair, was on the beach with a sick man, a Frenchman, and a short Italian man with glasses. She said there were papers involved. I kept shaking my head, no, no, no, but the psychic was certain about it.” The Italian man with the glasses was not in Parrot Cay with us, but he was clearly Pino Brusone, the managing director at Armani, who was set to join us once LVMH took over. I had met Pino through Christina Ong a few years back. I adored him and desperately wanted him to work with us, and now that dream was coming true.
“Wow, that’s crazy,” I said, stunned at the psychic’s accuracy. “Did she say anything else?”
“No,” Patti answered. “But I have to say, I’m tired of paying psychics who only want to talk about you.”
After the LVMH deal was fully revealed, Susan King became our go-to psychic for all matters big and small.
—
Operation Karma—that’s what I called our covert negotiations. There were many parts to LVMH buying our company, and they unfolded over four months. First, they bought Gabr
ielle Studio, the most valuable component because it held our trademarks, for $450 million. The second stage was to buy Donna Karan International stock for $8.50 a share. There was also a provision to buy our 819 Madison Avenue store, which made me sigh in relief because I had insisted on paying for it, and now a huge financial burden was lifted. I would be chief designer and maintain creative control. There were several other clauses and conditions, but those were the ones that stood out to me at the time.
When I went to sign the final papers at the offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, the law firm that represented Gabrielle Studio, there was a conference room full of executives, lawyers, and bankers. Piles of documents were neatly stacked in rows around a long table. Stephan had already signed everything and wasn’t there. I was a little late and wearing my usual ten pounds of cashmere layers.
“Good morning, everyone,” I said brightly. “Listen, I just got off the phone with my psychic, who told me that Mercury is in retrograde, which means this is a terrible time to enter any kind of contract. Can we put this off for a while?” (Thank God Stephan wasn’t there!) The room was silent for a minute. Finally, Eileen Nugent, our powerhouse mergers-and-acquisitions lawyer, who had been working with Stephan, Gail, and David, cleared her throat. “Donna, may I speak to you in private?”
She put her arm around me and led me to a corner. A minute later, I picked up a pen and signed each and every paper put in front of me.
“What did she say to you?” David asked afterward.
“She told me, and I quote, ‘This is the best fucking deal I’ve ever seen in my whole career. Now sit down and sign the papers. Now.’ I swear she was channeling my husband.”
That night Stephan and I were in our Wooster Street apartment reviewing the press release and other details about the deal, to be announced the next day, when Bonnie Young, who lived nearby, called. “Donna, may I come up? I need a favor.”
“Any other night but now, Bonnie. I’m so sorry.”
“It has to be tonight. I’m getting married tomorrow and you are the only witness I want on our marriage certificate.” Bonnie was marrying the photographer Luca Babini, the father of her baby, and she was due to give birth any day. I quickly let her up, signed the certificate, and rushed her out the door.
The next day, December 17, in front of hundreds of employees, we made two announcements: Bonnie Young was married, and we had a deal to sell the company to LVMH.
The press release went out, and not surprisingly, the directors and shareholders were furious. By selling Gabrielle Studio, the holder of our trademarks, the stock would surely plummet. One shareholder sued. No one was happy about LVMH’s offer of $8.50 a share. It took almost a year (and Stephan would be gone by then) for LVMH and shareholders to agree to $10.75 a share, which finalized the deal. By November 2001, more than four months after Stephan died, the acquisition was complete. LVMH now owned Donna Karan International lock, stock, and barrel.
Yves Carcelle, who negotiated the deal with Stephan (and who died from kidney cancer in 2014) later wrote the most beautiful note describing this time:
I’ve never enjoyed negotiating so much as I did with Stephan Weiss. That’s strange to say, because negotiation is never easy. People come to the table with different agendas, different degrees of ego, and of course, expectations about money. But my negotiations with Stephan for the trademark to Gabrielle Studio and then the acquisitions of Donna Karan International were the highest quality I’ve ever experienced.
Stephan was a man of intelligence, and at the same time, he possessed a great respect for other people. He was an extraordinary negotiator because he took the time to truly hear the other person, to understand their point of view. I remember sitting in a room with him, reviewing a list of five or ten points drawn up by the lawyers and bankers. “Stephan,” I’d say, “these are the points they’ve issued.” After each point, his response was always the same: “Give me a minute,” followed by 30 to 40 minutes of concentrated silence. Finally, he’d say, “I think that’s fair.” Or else, “Look, I see your point, but I have a problem with it. Let’s find a solution.” And we would. This was the exact opposite of most negotiations, where passions flare, people jump to conclusions and the shouting begins….My life’s one regret is that I did not know him longer.
There was a lot to celebrate, of course. But there was something bittersweet about the LVMH deal. Stephan was doing what he did best: taking care of his family. He saved me from the public company nightmare and gave our children long-term security. He was, in effect, putting his affairs in order before saying goodbye.
Credit 21.1
22
THE LAST CHRISTMAS
With the LVMH deal settled and announced, we could turn back to our lives. Christmas was coming. This would be a year of big gifts.
That spring, I had sat with the designer Donatella Versace at the Met Gala, the huge, celebrity-studded annual ball for the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute Exhibit. “Donna, what is zat on your hand?” she asked in her sexy Italian growl.
“My ring,” I said proudly, and put forth my oversized topaz ring, which I loved.
“Darling, zat is not a ring,” she said. “Zees is a ring.” She extended her hand and flashed the biggest diamond I’d ever seen in my life. I went home and told Stephan, who clearly made a mental note. Right before Christmas, he presented me with a little black felt bag. Inside was a stack of five or more slim, diamond-encrusted eternity-style rings. I was thrilled as I slipped each one on my finger.
“There’s more,” he said.
I fished in the bag, and my hand hit a rock. Literally. Out came a ring with what looked like an ice cube on top—14 carats, I later learned. I nearly screamed—not with excitement, but with fear. It was ridiculously big and so not me. For years, I’d try to cover it with long sleeves or turn it inside to face my palm. I couldn’t seem to make peace with owning something so ostentatious. But at that moment, Stephan’s happy smile erased any doubts, and I was nothing but grateful.
Of course, I had to be bratty, too. “I got something bigger than you did. I’m going to top you,” I sang around the house. But I would wait until Christmas to give it to him.
The whole family went to Parrot Cay for Christmas, and we stayed in our usual villa, Bungalow 118, at Como Shambhala. Gabby brought her boyfriend Gianpaolo, whom Stephan adored (even though he questioned how they could make their relationship work given that Gianpaolo was a pilot for Alitalia and the two of them were separated by the Atlantic). And Yves Carcelle came down with his family. We had a ton of fun, celebrating and relaxing under the sun.
Then I gave Stephan his gift. I took him to a spot on the beach that backed up to an expanse of undeveloped land. “Merry Christmas,” I said, my arms spread wide.
“What am I looking at?”
“Ten acres. The site of our future home.” I smiled brightly. “You said to be positive.”
He was awestruck. “How did you pull this off?” he asked. But then he shook his head and said, “Forget it, I don’t want to know.”
I was so proud of myself. “Told you I got something bigger than you got,” I teased.
“Promise me something, Donna,” he said, wrapping his arms around me. “We’ll build a house here for the family. One big enough to hold everyone, including future grandkids. Gabby and Gianpaolo look pretty serious to me, despite their little geography problem.” For that one minute, I let go of my worries and imagined that everything was going to be fine.
Como Shambhala always has an incredible New Year’s Eve party with dinner, dancing, and fireworks (now I host the dinner at my house), and 2000’s event (ringing in 2001) was no exception. Bruce Willis and Keith Richards duked it out for DJ duty. At some point, George Harrison of the Beatles brought out an old record player and took over. Stephan and George had become friendly and realized they were engaged in a similar struggle: George had had throat cancer, which had returned, this time to his lungs. The next day, the tw
o took a long and soulful walk down the beach together. I can only imagine the conversation. Neither man lived to ring in another year.
—
From the moment we returned to New York, Stephan grew sicker and sicker. More of his hair fell out, and what was left was white. His breathing worsened, so we needed the oxygen with us at all times. Ro Cappola, an oncology nurse whom Stephan had become close with after his second surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering, stayed in touch and would stop by and hang out. An Italian American brunette who was always battling her weight, Ro (short for Rosemarie) is a real New York character, with a tell-it-like-it-is sense of humor. Stephan trusted her implicitly and did anything she said or advised, and she was deeply comforting to all of us.
Still, I was a nervous wreck. Corey, who went to every doctor’s visit with his father, told me his primary doctor said there was nothing more to be done. What an asshole! Who would ever tell someone to give up hope? In my fury, I called my friend Evelyn Lauder. In 1992, Evelyn had established the Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering. She was wonderful and compassionate, and immediately put me in touch with the head of the hospital. We were instantly assigned a new doctor.
Not that a new doctor could make the chemo work better. The difference was that he treated us like people. That’s what you need when you’re sick and afraid: Compassion. Dignity. Partnership. Support. Stephan knew the chemo wasn’t working. We didn’t talk about him dying, but it was happening in front of my eyes. It hurt me to look at him. He’d aged fifteen or twenty years in no time at all. He’d shrunk. The energy was draining out of his body. He wasn’t my Stephan anymore.
Gabby, who lived just a block away from us downtown, spent her days at his side. He was her dad, her rock of Gibraltar (as opposed to her mother, yours truly, who constantly traveled and worked around the clock). Gabby would lie on the bed with him, keeping him company as he watched Star Trek and old movies. If Stephan was strong enough, Gabby would walk him over to his studio. Gianpaolo, who came to New York every chance he got, spent time at the studio, too, allowing Stephan to really get to know and love him.
