Donna Karan (born October 2, 1948, Forest Hills, New York, U.S.) is an American designer who is internationally acclaimed for the simplicity and comfort of her clothes.
Donna Karan was born in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens, New York. Her father was a tailor, and her mother was a model and a showroom sales representative in New York City’s garment district. Donna Karan launched a career in fashion at age 14 when she lied about her age to secure a job selling clothes in a boutique. An indifferent high-school student, she was accepted into New York’s Parsons School of Design on the recommendation of her mother’s employer, designer Chester Weinberg. After quitting school in 1968, she began working for sportswear designer Anne Klein, and it was around this time that she married boutique owner Mark Karan and took his name. The couple divorced in 1978.
After Klein died of cancer in 1974, Karan was elevated to chief designer and made responsible for that year’s Anne Klein fall collection. In 1975 Karan brought her former classmate Louis Dell’Olio into the company as a designer. The two were awarded the Coty American Fashion Critics Award in 1977 and 1981 and were later inducted into that body’s Hall of Fame. The Anne Klein Co. flourished, in large part owing to Karan’s marketing of a “bridge” line—a less expensive designer collection, Anne Klein II—which debuted in 1983.
In 1984 Karan used seed money provided by Tomio Taki, chairman of the American branch of a Japanese textile firm and a major partner in Anne Klein, to launch the Donna Karan Co. Karan and her second husband, sculptor Stephan Weiss, were married in 1983, and the couple served as chief executives of the firm, with Karan acting as chief designer; Weiss died in 2001. After the bridge line DKNY debuted in 1988, Karan’s company diversified and sold blue jeans, menswear, and a children’s line in addition to accessories, hosiery, and perfume. Karan won rave reviews for her mix-and-match clothing in soft fabrics and neutral colors. She was especially noted for her signature bodysuits, dark tights, sarong-wrap skirts, fitted jackets, and heavy pieces of jewelry.
In 1996 Karan took her company public. Five years later it was acquired by the luxury conglomerate LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton), but Karan kept control of her name and remained the chief designer. In 2007 she founded Urban Zen, a line that included clothing, accessories, and wellness goods. Her involvement in that company increased, and in 2015 it was announced that she was stepping down as chief designer of Donna Karan and would serve only as an adviser. The following year LVMH agreed to sell Donna Karan International to the American company G-III Apparel Group for an estimated $650 million.
In 2004 Karan received a lifetime achievement award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. She released a memoir, My Journey, in 2015.