Donna Karan

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Donna Karan (2008)

Donna Karan (born October 2, 1948 in Forest Hills , née Donna Ivy Faske) is an American fashion designer and entrepreneur .

From the beginning of the 1980s, Karan influenced women's clothing styles by creating a system of different basic clothing items - which she originally called "Seven Easy Pieces" and later "Essentials" - with possible combinations for business and evening wear . Karan preferred black as the basic color and also designed fashion for average sizes. It is also the invention of the bodys of elastic tricot attributed as the basic garment for everyday wear. The internationally renowned fashion journal WWD (Women's Wear Daily ) praised Karan 2015 "One of the most important designers in the history of American fashion" (dt. One of the most important designers in the history of American fashion ).

Karan was CEO of the fashion company Donna Karan International (DKI) , which she founded in New York in 1985, until it was sold to the French fashion conglomerate LVMH in 1997 and held her position as chief designer until she retired from the company in mid-2015 The high-priced main collection Donna Karan Collection for women was launched and concentrated on the DKNY collection, which was once established as a bridge line . Karan herself remained connected to the company as a consultant . At the end of July 2016, LVMH announced that it would sell Donna Karan to the US clothing manufacturer G-III Apparel Group.

Career

Education and design career

Donna Karan was born as Donna Ivy Faske into a family active in the fashion industry and grew up in Woodmere, Long Island . The father, Gabby Faske, was a bespoke tailor and dealt in haberdashery , the mother, Helen, worked as a showroom model . Her family is of Jewish origin. At the age of 14 she dropped out of school and started working in a boutique in the New York suburb of Cedarhurst . Karan was able to make important contacts there and was accepted for training at the Parsons School of Design in Manhattan. However, she did not complete this, but instead advanced to “Assistant Designer” after a summer temporary job at the women's fashion label Anne Klein . In 1971 she became an “Associate Designer”. In 1982 she created the second line Anne Klein II . Karan stayed with the company until 1984, where she and her colleague Louis Dell'Olio took over management after the death of the company's founder Anne Klein in 1974.

She married her first husband, Mark Karan, in 1970 and had their daughter Gabrielle, named Gabby, with him in 1974.

From company to group

The logo of the cosmetics division of your group

After their divorce in 1978, Karan remarried in 1982, the sculptor Stephan Weiss, whom she had already met in 1965. Weiss became Karan's closest confidante, advisor and muse. With him and the Japanese owner of Anne Klein , Takiyho, Inc., she made her 1984 self-employed and founded in 1985, the fashion label Donna Karan New York . She presented the first collection, including accessories and jewelry , under her name in the same year and was then voted 'Designer of the Year' by the Council of Fashion Designers of America . Karan's fashion was characterized by the fact that she designed items of clothing that she would wear herself, that they could also be worn by slightly plump women, that all parts of the collections could be combined with one another, were suitable as business outfits and were made of high-quality materials. Her "Seven Easy Pieces", which formed a modular system for the transition from day to evening wear, comprised a bodysuit , a blouse , a jacket , a coat , a skirt and a pair of trousers and "something fancy" (German: something chic). Karan's preferred fashion color was black , which she repeatedly accentuated with bright colors. In order to make her fashion comfortable for the wearer, she used elastane as a material . At a time when career-conscious women had to resort to men's business clothes in small sizes , Karan's fashion collection served the interests of their customers.

expansion

In 1989, Karan after the success of its main line, the less high-priced label DKNY ( acronym for: Donna Karan New York) as a bridge line before that younger customers as an audience had. Her daughter Gabby is said to have served as inspiration here, for whose everyday life there was little suitable to be found in the elegant Donna Karan New York collection. Jane Chung was hired to design the bridge line. As a result, DKNY was positioned as a real second line for the European market. At the same time, Karan started the Donna Karan Eyewear collection . In 1990 the DKNY line was complemented by DKNY JEANS , a denim-based streetwear collection in the lower price segment. Moreover, over time, there was a licensing nor the secondary lines DKNY Active (sports mode), DKNY Underwear (underwear), DKNY Kids (children's fashion) and DKNY JEANS Juniors (young fashion), which were later adjusted to some extent. In the early 2010s, the more fashionable DKNYC sub-collection was added to the range and discontinued in 2016.

Karan's company Donna Karan Beauty , for which the licenses were to be bought up by Estée Lauder in 1997 , released the perfume Donna Karan New York in 1992 , for the creation of which, including the design of the bottle , her husband Stephan Weiss, who heads the cosmetics division of And at the same time acted as co- CEO alongside Karan . In the years that followed, numerous fragrances, including for men, were launched, some of which were later discontinued or not re-launched until 2008.

In 1992 Karan also launched Donna Karan New York Menswear (menswear), Donna Karan Shoes (shoes) and Donna Karan Intimates ( lingerie ). In the same year she was voted 'Men's Fashion Designer of the Year' by the CFDA.

In 1993 the men's bridge collection DKNY Men's and children 's clothing was launched under DKNY Kids and in the following year the first DKNY flagship store in the world and in 1996 the first collection boutique in London were opened. Karan also presented Donna Karan Essentials , reissued basic classics and bestsellers from previous collections. In 1995 Karan designed the costumes for Martha Graham's choreography Snow on the Mesa . Her husband Stephan withdrew from the fashion industry to devote himself to sculpture. At this point he was already suffering from lung cancer . In 1996 the product lines Signature Donna Karan New York ( prêt-à-porter line for women and men), D by DKNY (more expensive variant of the DKNY women’s line), Donna Karan Home Accessories (later: Donna Karan Home Collection ) were launched brought. The company went public in the same year as Donna Karan International, Inc. (DKI) , but this did not bring the desired success. In 1997, Donna Karan also withdrew from the operative business , but remained on the board and continued to oversee the collections as a designer. In April the same year, the Donna Karan Boutique opened in Quartier 206 on Friedrichstrasse in Berlin , although it was closed again in 2001. It was not until 1999 and 2001 that the DKNY stores opened in Manhattan and, in 2001, a collection boutique as well . In 2000 the DKNY JEANS Juniors collection for young people was added to the portfolio.

LVMH

In 2001, Karan sold her company to the luxury company LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy) for a total of $ 643 million, of which approximately 450 million went to Karan and Weiss, but at the same time agreed to continue to function as the brand's designer. Her husband succumbed to his illness that same year and Donna Karan withdrew for a while. After his death, Karan turned the former studio of Stephan Weiss in Manhattan into a showroom and founded her Urban Zen Foundation initiative there in 2007 , a foundation which, among other things, is charitable in the field of ' yoga for cancer diseases '. Since then, Karan has not designed the collections herself, but has been the supervisor of a team of designers and has ensured that the fashion has the typical "Donna Karan" style. At the end of the Donna Karan and DKNY fashion shows , she appeared on the catwalk for the final applause until February 2015 .

LVMH discontinued the high-priced men's collections ( Collection and Signature ) after the takeover . Plans to resume upscale men's fashion alongside DKNY Men and DKNY JEANS for men were later not realized. The Signature women's line was also discontinued. In 2005 the company's own online shop opened . In the early 2010s, sales with the DKNY line accounted for 80% of total sales. In mid-2014, the company's long-standing, 1,000-square-meter flagship store on New York's Madison Avenue was closed. In April 2015, after 26 years as chief designer of DKNY, Jane Chung was replaced by the founders of the New York men's fashion label Public School , Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne.

At the end of June 2015, LVMH announced that Donna Karan was leaving her position as chief designer after 31 years to focus on her Urban Zen Foundation, which she founded in 2007 . Karan remains connected to the company through a long-term consultancy contract. From now on, the company wants to concentrate on the DKNY lines as well as the licensing business and consequently discontinue the main women's collection, Donna Karan Collection . Karan himself published the following statement:

"" LVMH and I have made this decision after much soul-searching. I have arrived at a point in my life where I need to spend more time to pursue my Urban Zen commitment to its fullest potential and follow my vision of philanthropy and commerce. ”“

- Donna Karan (2015)

"" LVMH and I made this decision after a long war of conscience. I have reached a point in my life where I have to spend more time to pursue my Urban Zen commitment to its full potential and to follow my vision of charity and commerce. ”“

- Donna Karan (2015)

In April 2016, LVHM announced that the sublines DKNYC and DKNY JEANS would be discontinued. At the end of July 2016, LVMH announced the sale of Donna Karan International (DKI) to the New York apparel manufacturer G-III Apparel Group, Ltd. for $ 650 million at the end of 2016.

G-III Apparel Group

At the beginning of December 2016, the designers Chow and Osborne as well as the managing director (CEO) since January 2015, Caroline Brown, left the company DKI.

Collections

Current collections:

  • DKNY - the former bridge collection for women (since 1989) and men (since 1993) and the company's main collection since Karan's retirement in 2015; also underwear (since 1999) and DKNY Kids (since 1993) in the medium price segment
  • Donna Karan Home Collection - bed linen, towels, pillows, decorative scarves etc. (since 2001)

Former collections:

  • Donna Karan New York (Collection) - Black Label, couture fashion for women (from 1985 to 2015) and men (from 1992 to 2002) in the top price segment
  • Donna Karan New York Essentials - relaunched classics from past collections for women (from 1993 to 1996)
  • Donna Karan New York Signature - Gold Label, successor to the Essentials line, high-priced luxury fashion for women and men (from 1996 to 2004)
  • discontinued sub-collections of the DKNY line: DKNYC , D by DKNY , DKNY Active
  • DKNY JEANS - Denim-based collection for women and men in the upper low-price segment (1990–2016) including DKNY JEANS Juniors (since 2000)

There are also accessories and shoe collections for the DKNY main collection. The fact that Liz Claiborne held the license to DKNY JEANS and DKNY Menswear for the American market from 1997 to 2012 and the Italian fashion manufacturer SINV for Europe and Asia from 2002 and then various other fashion producers resulted in regional differences in quality and style between the respective brands .

Boutiques

In 1999 there were 15 Donna Karan Collection stores and 41 DKNY boutiques worldwide. In July 2006 there were 16 Donna Karan New York stores and 47 DKNY stores worldwide . In addition, there were numerous DKNY JEANS stores and company outlet stores around the world. At the beginning of the 2010s there were still three Donna Karan Collection boutiques and five DKNY stores as well as 54 DKNY outlets ( Donna Karan Company Store ) in the USA . With the abandonment of the main line in 2015, all remaining collection stores, such as those in Manhattan (August 2014) and the one in London, were closed. In addition to numerous outlets, DKNY stores only existed in Las Vegas and Manhattan in mid-2016. There were DKNY stores worldwide in 2016, for example in London, Manchester, Singapore, Bangkok and the Philippines.

Awards

  • Coty American Fashion Critics Award - 1977, 1981, 1984 (entering the Coty Award Hall of Fame), 1985.
  • Fashion Footwear Association of New York Award - 1988.
  • Council of Fashion Designers of America - 1985 (Special Award), 1986 (Special Award), 1987 (Special Award), 1990 (women's fashion), 1992 (men's fashion), 2004 (life's work)
  • Woolmark Award - 1992.
  • Honorary degree, Bachelor of Fine Arts Parsons School of Design - 1987
  • Honorary Doctorate , Parsons School of Design - 2004

Publications

  • Donna Karan, New York. Schirmer / Mosel-Verlag, Munich / Paris / London 1998, ISBN 3-88814-643-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bella donna The Irish Times, September 25, 2010.
  2. ↑ Donna Karan to Step Down at DKI , wwd.com, June 30, 2015.
  3. ↑ Donna Karan announces withdrawal , spiegel.de, July 1, 2015.
  4. ↑ Donna Karan Steps Down, in Major Shift for Fashion , nytimes.com, June 30, 2015.
  5. ↑ Donna Karan gets new owner , handelsblatt.com, July 25, 2016.
  6. ↑ Donna Karan: The queen of business fashion turns 60 , Die Welt, October 2, 2008.
  7. ^ How We Met: Donna Karan and Stephan Weiss , independent.co.uk, September 11, 1994.
  8. ↑ Donna Karan's Journey  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Harper's Bazaar, September 21, 2010.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.harpersbazaar.com  
  9. ^ Council of Fashion Designers of America: Past Winners , cfda.com, accessed March 13, 2015.
  10. ^ Quartier 206: When luxury came to Berlin , Die Welt, October 8, 2007.
  11. ^ Claudia Fuchs: Quartier 206 without Donna Karan. In: Berliner Zeitung . December 28, 2001, accessed June 17, 2015 .
  12. ↑ Donna Karan Steps Down, in Major Shift for Fashion. New York Times , June 30, 2015, accessed July 4, 2015 .
  13. ↑ Donna Karan Steps Down, in Major Shift for Fashion. New York Times , June 30, 2015, accessed July 4, 2015 .
  14. ↑ Fewer Paris tourists and DKNY shift hit LVMH's fashion and leather , reuters.com, April 12, 2016
  15. ↑ LVMH sells US fashion brand Donna Karan , diepresse.com, July 25, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Karan, Donna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Faske, Donna Ivy (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American fashion designer and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Forest Hills ( New York City )