53 posts tagged "Donna Karan"
Worlds Collide In London, Where Donna And Samba Mingle
The world converged in London last night. “I’ve just flown in from L.A.,” said a breathless Donna Karan, “after Barbra Streisand’s closing-night concert at the bowl. The jet lag hasn’t kicked in yet.” Karan has been outfitting her friend Babs for the singer’s world tour, but the customer still comes first, which is what brought her to Harvey Nichols, to launch her own boutique and show her Resort collection. (Nicks’ brass said Karan was the top seller on its international floor last week.) Yasmin Le Bon (left, with Karan), Irina Lazareanu, and biking gold medalist Victoria Pendleton were among those on hand to welcome her.
Meanwhile, across town, another American transplant was celebrating its London debut: SushiSamba, the Japanese-meets-Brazilian chain, which opens its doors at East London’s Heron Tower. Alison Mosshart, McQueen muse Annabelle Neilson, Katie Grand, and Richard Nicoll (left) were among the revelers, as was Style.com’s roving advice columnist Waris Ahluwalia, while Pixie Geldof’s band Violet played a set Mark Ronson spun the tunes. (His uncle, Gerald Ronson, built the tower.) At Harvey Nichols, Yasmin Le Bon was applauding her friend Donna’s knack for knowing how real women want to dress in the real world, but the dress code here was more unreal woman in the unreal world: a clatch of barely clothed samba dancers. “You know it’s a good party when you’re picking feathers out of your mouth all night,” Peter Pilotto said with a laugh.
Parsons: The First 18
“I think what the students have in common is that they each have an individual voice,” said Shelley Fox, the director of the new MFA Fashion Design and Society course at Parsons School of Design. The course is the first of its kind in New York. And on Saturday, at Made Fashion Week at Milk Studios, its first 18 graduates (hailing from 13 countries) sent the fruits of their labor down the catwalk. Donna Karan, who was a strong supporter of the course and instrumental in its inception, turned up to cheer on the grads. “Although I was a student at Parsons, I found myself hiring a lot of people from Louise Wilson at Central Saint Martins in London and I said, ‘Wait, how come we don’t have a graduate program in New York?’ ” said Karan. Wilson herself crossed the pond to attend the show. She shared the front row with the likes of Fern Mallis, Julie Gilhart, and Bill Cunningham—not a bad turnout for a student production.
The show opened with looks by Lucia Cuba. With a background in social psychology, the Peruvian designer created a sartorial expression of activism, commenting on women’s issues and politics in Lima. The clothes combined 1950s silhouettes with prints of women’s crotches or pictures of a young Alberto Fujimori (a dictator who has been jailed for human rights abuses). Paula Cheng’s collection of webbed, multitextural silver and gray knits was another standout (pictured).
Students explored concepts of deconstruction and reconstruction (like show-closer Talia Shuvalov’s sweatshirts embellished with vintage tees that she took apart and rewove, or Jun Juyeon Hong’s impeccable wool suiting that featured unexpected lines, layers, and cutouts) and minimalism (like Beckett Fogg’s embossed leather and chiffon collection, or Noriko Kikuchi’s ethereal white looks based on emptiness) and showed no fear when it came to color. Liverpool native Carly Ellis was particularly courageous in her sporty, techno looks. Backstage, the purple-haired designer explained that she was inspired by vivid tourist pictures she snapped in New York as well as fragmented Skype images and the geometric painting rituals of South Africa’s Ndebele tribe. Sinéad Lawlor’s tailored button-photo print collection, which featured smart suiting combined with knitting techniques and lace, was another colorful offering. Each of the collections was conceptually rich and, at times, complicated, but many of the designs seemed not only wearable but sellable, too.
Costume Drama: Robert Lee Morris On The Relaunch Of His Namesake Brand
Robert Lee Morris. The first name—or three—in costume jewelry blazed a new path for contemporary fashion accessories when he launched his namesake collection in 1971 with big, bold, tribal-inspired pieces that attracted the attention of retailers, press, and fellow designers. He went on to collaborate with some—Calvin Klein, Karl Lagerfeld, and most famously Donna Karan, with whom he designed jewelry for 28 of her collections. After a brief stint in the fine jewelry sector, Morris is now relaunching his eponymous brand with Haskell Jewels (as in Miriam). The prices are lower—ranging from $150 to $1,000—but the iconic RLM look is all the same. Style.com sat down with Morris to talk old days, newcomers, and what stood between him and Tom Ford, and to take an exclusive first look at a few of his new pieces.
Robert Lee Morris relaunches this September at Bergdorf Goodman, Kirna Zabête, Morris’ Soho store, and www.robertleemorris.com.
How is this collection different from anything else you’ve done?
The thing that makes this collection different is that it is primarily affordable. It’s constructed of solid cast brass, which is a wonderful metal; I’ve always used brass in everything I’ve ever made, because I can get big, bold shapes and I can do anything with it. With the economy being what it is, it makes more sense to shift my entire direction towards the affordability and my desire to want more people to have my work, and that’s the big difference. I’m able to distribute my work at a much more affordable price without losing its signature look.
How has the costume jewelry industry changed since you got started 40 years ago?
It’s come full circle. When I started, it was the beginning of a revolution that I was very much a part of. Similar ideas were happening in Japan, Europe, and America—of creating jewelry that was challenging and full of content. That was the beginning of the designer-artist jewelry movement. That has never died, though it’s certainly had some low points. When I started, it was a heyday and opened many doors; retailers went crazy for it. Then in the nineties we had the complete opposite: All shows of wealth became a no-no. The recession hit hard, the Gulf War was going on, the stock market crashed. Everything that was fabulous and wild in the eighties came to a screeching halt. Nobody wanted to spend money on anything that wasn’t just pure “meat and potatoes” safe, and my range of the jewelry business collapsed. Then in 1995, Tom Ford at Gucci started showing Halston-esque, sexy, body-hugging clothing, and the next thing you know, we’re back in business. It was a revival and we didn’t do anything. I didn’t think I was even old enough to have a revival. The creativity is still not 100 percent back yet, but there’s been a slow return in costume jewelry of big, bold, fun-to-wear, wacky, crazy things. Designers who were once subtle are kicking it up ten notches to crazy. Continue Reading “Costume Drama: Robert Lee Morris On The Relaunch Of His Namesake Brand” »
Helping Haiti, One Brushstroke At A Time
“I was in Haiti for my very first time,” says the designer and big-time Haiti activist Donna Karan, “and I got back to my hotel one day and saw this amazing artwork on the walls. I said, Oh my God, who did this?” As it turned out, the artist was leading contemporary Haitian artist Philippe Dodard, and he happened to be standing right behind her at that moment. (Apparently, timing really is everything.)
After that chance meeting, Dodard’s strong graphic ink wash paintings became the inspiration for Karan’s Spring 2012 graphic collection of body-hugging dresses and full skirts (of which a portion of the sales benefited the artisans of Haiti). More recently, the pair combined their artistic efforts for a new exhibition at North Miami’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), entitled The Luminous Breath of the Human Spirit. On display, there are six dresses from Karan’s Spring collection (pictured, left) and 37 works by Dodard (who now serves as the general director of the National School of Arts in Haiti). “I want to create art that awakens rather than satisfies the mundane desires of the clientele—art that embodies different answers to our human problems,” Dodard tells Style.com of his work. That is the bigger picture to this ongoing partnership between Karan and Dodard (they have collaborated on design and metal projects through initiatives of her Urban Zen foundation, and both contributed to photographer Russell James’ Nomad Two Worlds multimedia project, which has been showcased around the world and is now on display at Urban Zen)—the duo is revitalizing and rebuilding Haiti through art.
“I have always said that the answer to Haiti is in the hands of the people,” says Karan, who, since meeting Dodard, has been back to the country countless times. “It’s the artists, the most creative people, who will revive it.”
The Luminous Breath of the Human Spirit is on display through June 20 at MOCA, 770 Northeast 125th St., Miami, Fla., (305) 893-6211. To learn more about Karan and Dodard’s collaborative efforts, visit UrbanZen.org.
Parsons: The New Class
“As a designer, I am blown away,” said Donna Karan last night, after making the rounds at “The First Eighteen,” a showcase of work by the inaugural group of 18 students (ages 24 to 31) in Parsons’ graduate MFA program in fashion design and society. “The sophistication, the understanding, the ability to hold a collection together, it is so telling,” she explained. Karan, a Parsons alumna, was joined at the school by co-host Joanna Coles, Simon Collins, the dean of the School of Fashion, Shelley Fox, the mastermind behind the MFA program, and designers Victoria Bartlett, Chris Benz, and Gabi Asfour of threeasfour, in toasting the student designs, all of which had been year-long projects.
The work by Beckett Fogg and Sinead Lawlor, in particular, garnered especially positive reactions from the crowd. Fogg’s monochromatic black and white womenswear pieces were clean-cut, but finished with luxe embossed leather touches. Lawlor went a completely different route, showing a range of bright blue, red, and yellow womenswear separates done in an explosive button print that was bold, yet equally wearable (pictured). There were also a handful of students that went for a more avant-garde aesthetic, showing conceptual designs that, according to Collins, “should be shown at the Met right now” (referring to the recently opened Schiaparelli/Prada exhibit currently on display at the museum). By the end of the night, it was no secret that Karan, who has been focused on her Urban Zen project in Haiti, had acquired some favorites and perhaps some plans for those students’ futures. “There are three that I really love,” she said. “I would like to get their hands in Haiti, you have no idea.”
“The First Eighteen” is on view daily at 1359 Broadway, New York, through May 23.