My Journey

by Donna Karan

  “Bill, why don’t you make earrings? In fact, why don’t you make accessories for me?”

  “Sure, why not?” he said. As I quickly found out, Bill was an adventurer, game to try anything, even fashion. He was totally otherworldly. He lived in what looked like a tree house; he was a bow-and-arrow hunter; he spearfished. At one point he put me on his motorcycle, and when we stopped to have coffee, he took off his shirt and did a headstand for me. Turns out he was a yogi, too! I felt like I’d dreamed him up. On the way back to his studio, we passed a sign for Alaska.

  “Bill, can you take me to Alaska from here?”

  “It’s a bit far.”

  “How about Big Sur, then?” When I was in design school, I had this fantasy about living and designing in Big Sur—wearing a white robe, drawing up designs, and sending them to New York before going for a horseback ride on the beach.

  “How would we get there?” he asked.

  “I happen to have brought a plane with me,” I said. Of course, Marni and Ruth were with us, too, but they promised to hang in the background.

  When we arrived, I rented a chocolate Jaguar convertible (just like one I used to own), and away we went. We had a blast. He was fearless, jumping off bluff after bluff into the Pacific. We stayed at the Esalen Institute, the healing arts center and institute. Bill was just as woo-woo as I was. Everything was going swimmingly until we ran of gas—literally—and I let it slip that I didn’t know how to pump gas.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know how to pump gas?” he asked, seriously confused.

  “Exactly that.”

  “Do you cook?”

  “I used to.”

  Catching on, he shook his head. “Let me give you an essential list of what one needs to do in life.”

  That got my attention. “Give it to me.” And he did:

  1. Fill your own gas tank.

  2. Buy your own groceries.

  3. Make your own bed.

  4. Do your own laundry.

  5. Cook your own meals.

  I couldn’t pretend I did any of them, at least not anymore. “Look, Bill,” I said, as reasonably as I could. “There are certain things in life I had to give up in order to be a designer. It’s just how it is.”

  We weren’t a love match, but we continued to collaborate for my fall 2004 collection, one of my all-time favorites. The palette—aubergine, wine, bronze, and black—was borrowed from the earth. We had little fur shrugs over sexy jersey dresses with plunging necklines for a vibe that was urban with a savage sensuality. Bill created glass discs and buckle-like pieces that I draped fabric through to give structure to one-shouldered and twist-front looks. He even came to New York for our show and stayed at my apartment, but he wanted to sleep on the terrace. The city was much too much for him.

  He was Tarzan, but I was no Jane. Still, my experience with Bill proved that there could be life after Stephan, that I could meet new people and be engaged. Creatively, I was reenergized by discovering a new medium, which I brought into my fashion. I loved the hands-on nature of working with an artisan; it reminded me of collaborating with Robert Lee Morris. I slowly began to think less about what was missing from my life and more about what lay ahead. A world of possibility was starting to open.

  Credit 23.1

  24

  ARE YOU COMMITTED?

  It was winter 2003, and I was feeling restless. I was living in my new home on Central Park West, the one that Stephan had bought for us and where I still live today. It’s a beautiful, sprawling apartment with breathtaking views, a wraparound terrace, limestone floors, and dramatic art everywhere you look. (It’s seven thousand square feet, and people are always shocked to see that I knocked out almost every wall and turned it into a one-bedroom apartment with a yoga studio and an enormous closet.) Still, living in such a large place by myself was hard. I have never been good at being alone.

  —

  My apartment may have been finished, but creating my dream family home in Parrot Cay was taking forever. At that time, building in the Turks and Caicos was a logistical feat as much as it was a design process. Plans were being drawn up, but we had a long road ahead. Of course, I didn’t help the process; I was always changing my mind about what I wanted—what else is new? Stephan used to make decisions for me, as I clearly had commitment issues. Without him, some things were left floating, waiting to land. Kind of like I was.

  —

  Early in 2004, I discovered Kabbalah. For a non-practicing Jew, it was the last thing I expected to embrace. Many of my friends, like the jewelry designer Karen Erickson, thought I’d like Kabbalah, but I resisted the idea. Nothing was getting me into a temple. Then, while having dinner with my friend Lisa Fox at Lever House (her husband’s restaurant), Lisa called Ruth Rosenberg, her spiritual teacher, and asked her to come join us, which she did. Ruth’s husband, Moshe, came with her, and he started reading my face and my hands. Then Ruth talked about astrology. Now this I can get into, I thought.

  The next night I invited Ruth to join me for dinner with my friends Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, then her husband, who were also Kabbalists. I learned that Kabbalah literally means “receiving,” and that the practice was about gaining spiritual fulfillment in life by studying the spiritual laws of the universe, including human existence and the journey of the soul. “I’ve never subscribed to any one ideology,” I told Ruth. “Spiritually speaking, I’m a free agent, open to anything and everything.”

  “I’m not here to change your mind, Donna,” Ruth said. She handed me the Zohar, Kabbalah’s spiritual text. “Study it and see what you think. Only you know what speaks to you.”

  It spoke to me soon enough—and right before a fashion show, no less. For my fall 2004 show (the one for which I collaborated with Bill Morris), I had the runway painted a golden color, so all the models would glow in its reflection. Sounds pretty, right? Well, it wasn’t. At the rehearsal, the models looked jaundiced. In fact, anyone who came anywhere near the runway looked sickly. I was on the phone with Ruth freaking out as this was unfolding. She told me to find a quiet place and hold the Zohar she had given me. I hung up and did exactly that. I’m not exaggerating when I say a powerful bolt of energy flowed through me. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Shunned, I called back Ruth, who identified the energy as light.

  “You must come to my show,” I said. “I need you here.” I just knew that if she came, everything would be okay. And it was. When I returned to the space the next day, the runway was painted black, and the show went smoothly.

  Almost immediately afterward, Ruth asked me to join her for Passover in Los Angeles with Rav Philip Berg, the rabbi and dean of Kabbalah Center International, known for his modern, accessible interpretation of ancient Jewish mystical tradition. The first thing the Rav asked me was, “Are you committed?” That threw me. Committing to dinner plans was hard enough. But he was really asking something deeper: Was I a committed person? Could I be? And to what am I committed? We talked and talked throughout that Passover. The clincher for me was learning about Kabbalah’s Spirituality for Kids, the part of the religion geared toward children. It was the simple but revolutionary idea of teaching them compassion, caring, and sharing through mind, body, and spirit. I’m such a kid myself—curious, playful—that the philosophy spoke to me. I started speaking to Ruth on a weekly basis and found myself embracing this spirituality born of the light and asking myself how I could become more involved, more committed. Life after Stephan, I was discovering, was full of surprises.

  —

  Professionally, my biggest surprise at this time was receiving the 2004 CFDA Lifetime Achievement Award. I was only fifty-five—wasn’t this an old person’s award, a retirement honor of some sort? On the other hand, it felt incredibly validating to be acknowledged by my peers for a career that had spanned thirty years. The actress Susan Sarandon presented the actual award, and we kissed on the lips, which caused a stir. Wonderful as the CFDA
honor was, I refused to internalize it. I was far from done; in fact, in so many ways, I felt like I was just beginning. I accepted the award in an atypical Donna Karan dress: a sexy chartreuse green stretch lace wrap-and-drape style.

  Work was moving along, but it was frustrating, because we had yet another CEO. Fred had moved on to Saks Fifth Avenue and been replaced by Jeffry Aronsson, formerly of Marc Jacobs. I liked Jeffry a lot (I liked all the CEOs) but, given the revolving door, found myself leery of getting too invested in any one person. So I stuck to what I knew best: design. Our collections were doing well, critically and commercially. Bonnie was no longer traveling, as she had two children and was starting up her own children’s line. So now I got to be Bonnie and travel the world for ideas.

  I was trying to stay in the flow, putting myself out there creatively, being there for Gabby and Lynn, and learning to embrace the light through my travels. I won’t say I was succeeding, but I was trying.

  —

  I met John James (JJ) Biasucci, my first full-fledged romantic partner after Stephan, in Parrot Cay. I was popping over there regularly, usually with a friend or two or three. This time I was there for my birthday, and my friend the producer Sandy Gallin brought JJ, a personal trainer, as a gift for both of us to train with. I had met JJ once, briefly, at a party in Sandy’s house in New York. At some point, Sandy took me aside and said, “Donna, I could really see you two together.”

  “What are you, crazy?” I said, peering at the young, handsome guy with the most ridiculous abs I’d ever seen.

  “Give it a chance.”

  We had nothing in common. Nothing. But in a way, that was the point. We hit it off immediately.

  JJ was great-looking, incredibly sweet, and laid back. Nothing bothered him. Yes, he was younger, by almost twenty-five years, but that actually made things simpler. I was completely relaxed in his company and never felt the need to have my hair or makeup done or be “on” around him—a freedom I hadn’t known with a new person since high school. It wasn’t like I had a lot of experience with men; I had married the only two men I’d been with. So this was new and exciting, and sexy, too. I was slim and feeling fantastic.

  In just a short time, JJ came to know me better than anyone. Other than my granddaughter Stefania, I’ve never known anyone less impressed by what I do. He nicknamed me “Faskowitz,” the original name of my father’s family, and we loved going to the movies and eating popcorn and drinking Diet Cokes. To the surprise of my friends and family, we started dating seriously and traveling together. I asked him to go to Bali with me, and that trip sealed the deal. After the twenty-four-hour journey and nonstop time together, I could safely say we clicked. He loved Bali as much as I did. JJ became my private life, the person I hung out with when I didn’t want to be Donna Karan and all that implied.

  —

  The very next month, I set off on a three-week trip to Africa. My dear friend Richard Baskin and new friend Steve Reuther (the one who’d gone heli-skiing with another woman and was now like a brother to me) organized the whole thing, and we included our Sun Valley friend Nettie Frehling and her children. We were going on the ultimate safari: a tour of Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, and South Africa.

  The experience was transformative, transcendent, enlightening. And humbling. Because in Africa, I felt like a tiny grain of sand, a witness to something so much bigger than myself. I was instantly obsessed with the African bush, sleeping in a tent, not caring about my appearance, and being in nature untouched by man. We saw the migration of the wildebeest and more elephants than I thought lived on earth. And don’t get me started about the hippos, my personal favorite. Of course, my fashion sense prevailed. The minute I saw the zebras, I thought, But of course, graphic black and white! They’re the best-dressed animals of all.

  The tribes we met were so happy and pure. The Masai had no sense of need or greed. They live in huts and don’t care about material possessions. I started thinking maybe I had been a warrior in a past life because of how easily I can wrap and tie a scarf. I fell so in love with Africa and the Africans I was meeting, I wanted to plan a DKNY shoot in Cape Town. I had Danielle Reuther, Steve’s daughter, call up all the local modeling agencies and arrange auditions.

  “Donna, do we really have time for this?” Richard asked. “Can’t you send your people to do this?”

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” I said. “You meet a cute girl, and I meet a cute guy.”

  We met the nicest people imaginable at the casting call. The shoot never happened, but I took everyone out to dinner, and Richard was thrilled to be surrounded by models.

  —

  Steve, Richard, and I were extremely close after our African safari, and we began planning our next adventure: a trip to Australia for a “Date with Destiny” seminar with the famed life coach Tony Robbins. I had already attended a weekend seminar with him in New Jersey, but this would be far more intensive. My assistant, Marni, who came with us, knew Tony and felt he was just the person who could help me find the inner calm I was looking for. As the seminar progressed, however, I just wasn’t getting the appeal. People were having exultations left and right, but I was completely unmoved. Great, I thought. I failed typing and draping, and now I’m failing Tony Robbins.

  On the last day, Tony asked the audience something to the effect of, “Who doesn’t get it?”

  Embarrassed, I raised my pinky. Next thing I knew, I was on the stage alone with Tony. Richard was mortified. I was mortified. There were three thousand people in that audience, and here I was, the globally known Donna Karan, up on the stage, pouring my heart out. But Tony makes you forget the audience. He speaks one-on-one with you until he gets you to reveal what’s really going on inside. I started with my same-old same-old, “Leave me alone.” I explained how I have all these people around me with expectations, and yet I felt very alone and unloved. Just like I had at est, I repeated the line over and over. Tony made me see that it wasn’t people who were holding me back, it was the baggage I was holding. The mental stories I told myself (that I wasn’t good enough, that I was an outsider, that I lived in fear of being alone) weighed me down. If I let the baggage go, I would have the space and energy to realize my potential. We kid ourselves that everyone else is the problem. But we have to start with ourselves. I could choose to “be here now,” as Tony put it. To live in the present—not regret the past and not worry about the future.

  —

  This made sense in theory, but it was hard to do. I often felt as if I was spinning my wheels, making the same mistakes again and again. A year and a half after breaking my knee, I broke the other one, also while skiing. Eight screws later, I was back in New York in a wheelchair. Nettie visited me and came bearing gifts: two little dachshunds, whom I named Cash and Mere. I love Nettie with all my heart, but I am not a small-dog person. They yipped and yapped nonstop, and I didn’t know what to do with them. Nettie promised to take them back home to Sun Valley with her. But while she was still in New York, my stepdaughter Lisa called to say that she’d seen the most amazing chocolate Labrador retriever in the window of a pet store called American Kennel, across town on Madison Avenue. The problem was, a major snowstorm was under way, and we couldn’t get a car. (Every big event in my life seems to happen during a snowstorm.) I called and asked if they could hold the puppy until after the storm. “We don’t hold dogs,” was the curt reply.

  “I appreciate that,” I said, “but I’m in a wheelchair and can’t get there today.”

  “Sorry, lady, we don’t hold dogs.”

  And then I did something I’d never done before: I used my name. “I’m the designer Donna Karan, and it’s so important you hold this dog for me.”

  “I don’t care who you are. We don’t hold dogs.”

  I hate the word no, so I begged. “Look, my husband died, and I’m lonely. I need that dog!”

  Begrudgingly, he said, “I’ll hold him for an hour. No more.”

  So there I was, in my wheelchair, t
wo dachshunds on my lap, with Nettie wheeling me across Central Park in a snowstorm. At one point, the chair tipped over, and the dogs scrambled away. Nettie put us all back in place, and we finally arrived at the store. There was my dog, waiting for me. Kismet! I fell crazy in love on the spot. I named my new baby Steph, because he, too, stole my heart in a snowstorm. He loves East Hampton and Parrot Cay as much as his namesake did, and he loves sleeping next to me every night. And he’s best friends with Stefania, of course.

  Meanwhile, Stefania was about to have a brother. Gabby was pregnant again—with a boy! Sebastian de Felice joined our world on July 26, 2005. From the start, he was as charming and handsome as his father. Our family seems to specialize in this kind of guy. Stephan was gone, but our family was expanding. I wish Stephan could have met these two amazing children. Then again, there’s so much I wish Stephan could have lived to experience.

  —

  Within a year of Sebastian’s birth, Ruth took me to Israel on a spiritual journey along with Moshe, their two children, and my friend Lisa Fox. It was my first trip there, and I had no idea what I was in for. David Bressman, who was now my personal lawyer, was nervous about me going to such a politically turbulent country and made Ruth assure him we would be protected at all times. The first day or so, Ruth pulled over to the side of a road, walked us down a path to water, and started taking off her clothes.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, truly alarmed.

  “We’re about to experience our first mikvah,” she answered calmly, then explained that a mikvah was a ritual to purify and cleanse one’s body and soul. “You need to take off your clothes, too.”