Donna Karan steps down

Coimbatore, a dusty, colourless city in Southern India, is hardly a place to seek out fashion. In fact, after the buoyancy of a metropolis like Mumbai, where I am used to the spirited life that pulsates across the arterial Arabian Sea coastline, Coimbatore felt like a listless, landlocked habitat, a nondescript whistle stop to someplace exciting. Save for one thing: Ensconced within this city is Isha Ashram, an oasis of calm and spirituality.

Amongst this mass of humanity gathered to discuss philosophy, practise yoga and meditate, one towering figure stood out—Donna Karan. A yogini from the age of 18, the American designer's relationship with yoga has been as constant as the waxing and waning of the moon. Her unwavering spiritual practice has been the fulcrum that retained her balance through the vagaries of life, of which she has seen many, including the loss of her husband.

Upon dropping out of art school, Karan interned at Anne Klein, training under her for 10 years, before releasing a collection of her own in 1985. She created the kind of practical wardrobe that has endeared her brand to women across the world—black leggings, a wrap-and-tie skirt, exemplified in her Seven Easy Pieces collection, where her mission to design modern clothes for modern women reached fruition. Collection after collection, it's been an immaculate combination of comfort, style and practicality. I sat down with her within the calm comfort of Isha Ashram to ask her a few soul-searching questions.

Bandana Tewari: Do we need to change the way we look at fashion and the way weconsume it?

Donna Karan: Absolutely, given what the world is today. We have a very complicated world right now and as a designer I see it and I feel it. I think that is what a designer does—have a sense of where one has to go. When I started my company as Donna Karan women were working women. We shifted to clothes that brought comfort and professionalism to work and travel. Context is everything. We designers have to respond to the needs of the time.

BT: How is yoga such a big part of your life?

DK: See, no matter which way the tide turned, it was always about thebodysuit; and that is because I am a yogi. My collections were always based on the fact that I practised yoga since I was 18 years old. So, yoga for me is who I was and where the fundamentals of my design come from: stretch, leggings, wraps, everything.

BT: Your life's trajectory has seen some great turbulence, has it not?

DK: My daughter is born, and [days later] my boss [Anne Klein] dies of cancer. I had a collection due for the next day. And the rest is history. You know, when life throws a curveball of such magnitude, it's like you don't have the chance to think. The regular thought processes leave you. I was planning on going home, being a mom. But that is not how the universe had planned life for me.

BT: Like the practice of yoga, guide us through the simplicity of your design aesthetic.

DK: My design aesthetic didn’t come from a complicated thought process. See, I wore a bodysuit everyday. And on top of that I wore leggings, because I was doing yoga. With this I also threw on a scarf. And then I realised— I love tailoring! So I would throw on a jacket. My father was a custom tailor, so tailoring is in my blood. But the most important realisation then was that I didn't like to change clothes too often. It was too confusing and time-consuming for me. So I worked on a wardrobe that I loved and that could be worn day in and day out. I knew I could design them artistically, but for myself I found, and continue to find, comfort in a specific uniform of dressing.

BT: And you have a very specific Donna Karan woman in mind?

DK: I didn't think that woman existed I never really planned for her per se. It was more organic; I knew there were friends and me and our needs. So I started designing. And all of a sudden I realised that everybody liked it. You know, I took a piece of fabric, wrapped it around, like a sari, and then to that I added tights. It was easy when you walked, nothing was spilling out or revealing. Then came the shoes and the jewellery, which became great accent pieces. And it was just a system that really gave sophistication, a sensuality, comfort and something that a woman could travel around with, which is what I was doing— I was travelling around a lot. And then it seemed that a lot of people liked it.

BT: Your fashion had a lot of philanthropy embedded in it. How so?

DK: Yes. It started at Donna Karan when the AIDS epidemic broke out. And I brought the community together for seven months. First I was raising money for AIDS, and then it was for ovarian cancer. Fashion has the power to engage conscious consumers; it has the power to dress them and then address them. We can address global problems withi fashion. And then I saw that it got much deeper than that for me. My husband was sick with cancer and I realised what was missing in healthcare. Everyone was caring for a disease. You have the doctor, you have the hospital, the nurse—but nobody was looking over the patient. There was no patient care. So, we sat around and did a 10-day conference on what’s wrong with our healthcare system. And in that conference, every morning there was a different practice with different teachers, and every afternoon all the people in the healthcare industry got together—patients, doctors, nurses—the top of the top. I mean, everybody was there, from Deepak [Chopra] to Tony [Anthony Robbins], you name it, they were there. We all sat there and I said, "I want to start an organisation that really takes care of the patient." So I had this vision called Urban Zen.

BT: So philanthropy and commerce can come together?

DK: Yes! We can dress and address people. My centre, Urban Zen, is a living example. This centre holds conferences, teachings and practices; and I have a retail store next door to it. It was important to me to build a brand that was about conscious consumers—philanthropy and commerce. It was dressing and addressing the insideand outside. Because of yoga, the mind, body and spirit has always been an important part of my life. I realize this holistic approach was really missin in healthcare and in education. If we integrate and understand the past, present and future we may have an answer. The past is a preservation of culture, the present is healthcare, and the future is education.

BT: Do you miss your husband?

Oh, he's with me everyday. We get along much better (laughs). He was my partner in business; he was the love of my life; he is my inspiration and continues to be my protector.

This interview has been excerpted from the January 2014 issue of Vogue India. To read more, subscribe to the print edition or get the single digital copy. To read more, subscribe to the print edition or get the single digital copy now.