Fashion designer, born in Forest Hills, New York, USA. She became chief designer with the Anna Klein sportswear company in 1974 , and with fellow designer Louis Dell'Olio won the Coty American Fashion Critic's Award in 1977and 1981. She launched the Donna Karan Co in 1984, and DKNY in 1988. In 2004, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. An autobiography, The Journey of a Woman was published in 2004.
Donna Karan International
Karan, nicknamed The Queen Of Seventh Avenue, began working for Liz Claiborne at a very young age. When Anne Klein herself died in 1974, Takihyo Corporation of Japan became the new owner and Karan, together with her former classmate and friend Louis Dell’Ollio, became head designer of the house. In 1984 Donna Karan left Anne Klein and, together with her husband Stephan Weiss and Takihyo Corporation she started her own business “to design modern clothes for modern people". She showed her first Donna Karan women’s collection in 1985. Karan always insisted that she would only design clothes, like jersey dresses and opaque Lycra tights, that she would also wear herself. Donna Karan was so New York that the New York Times described her as “Ed Koch in a stretchy black dress” in the early nineties, referring to the then mayor of New York City.
In 1988 Karan extended her women’s Signature Collection by a less expensive line, called DKNY, for younger women. The line was such a hit that Karan can be regarded as the first designer to successfully establish a bridge collection. Two years later she created DKNY Jeans and DKNY for men was launched in 1992, one year after the Signature collection line for men had been presented.
The European DKNY business was damaged in the early 1990s by poor quality and flawed logistics which resulted in the creation of a European supply center in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Donna Karan, Inc. and LVMH
In mid-1997 Donna Karan quit as CEO of the company but has officially remained chairwoman and designer in charge of the Donna Karan line. Actually, the line these days is designed by Peter Speliopoulos, a talented former Cerruti designer, with Karan contributing little subtleties or even entire new creations. The DKNY line is entirely designed by Jane Chung, a Karan employee since the days at Anne Klein. In 1997, Donna Karan signed licensing deals with Wacoal America for men's and women's DKNY intimate apparel, Esprit for DKNY children's apparel, Phillips Van Heusen for DKNY men's dress shirts, Mallory & Church for DKNY men's ties and hosiery, Peerless Clothing for DKNY suits and sport coats, and Max Leather for belts and small leather goods.
In 1998, things had turned for DKNY: a men's dress shirt sells now for up to $125 while a Calvin Klein sportswear dress shirt is almost half. The couture Donna Karan Signature line for men has been pulled from the market.
As of October 2006, Mark Weber is CEO of Donna Karan International.
Biography
Donna Faske was born October 2, 1948 in Forest Hills, New York. , She married Mark Karan in the early 1970s.
In the beginning of the 1980s, Karan left her husband for Stephan Weiss, an artist sculptor whom she had met at a blind date, and married him in 1983. When the Japanese owners of Anne Klein financially supported Karan to start her own business with $3 million in 1984, Weiss, who already had two children from a former marriage, stopped working as a sculptor to help Donna Karan with her new company right from the very beginning. Karan still maintains her husband’s 10,000-square-foot former studio at 711 Greenwich Street in New York. The studio serves as a cultural gallery for society events and Donna Karan also shows her fashion collections during New York Fashion Week there.
Donna Karan stores
The first DKNY flagship store opened in 1999 at Madison Avenue and 60th in New York. According to the company’s web site there are Donna Karan stores in New York, Manhasset, Costa Mesa, London, Singapore, Tokyo, Fukuoka, Riyadh, Jeddah and Dubai. The Donna Karan store in Berlin was closed in December 2001. Apart from DKNY stores in New York, Costa Mesa, Short Hills, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Denver, there are international outlets in London, Antwerp, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Dubai, Tel Aviv and Montreal as well as at more unusual locations such as Cancun, Barcelona, Ankara, Manchester, Kuala Lumpur, Manila and Beirut, among others. In addition, there are so-called Donna Karan Company stores, predominantly located within outlet malls, which sell the merchandise at reduced prices.
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