If I weren't doing what I'm doing today... I'd be traveling around the world on the back of a motorcycle.
— Donna Karan
I start my day with a mind, body, soul practice - yoga, Pilates or meditation.
When I started Donna Karan, people weren't really accepting the idea of the working woman.
I always thought I should have been a better mother.
To me, design and style should work toward making you look good and feel good without a lot of effort - so you can get on with the things that matter.
I live for what I haven't done.
Basically, I was a hippie and still am a flower child.
I'm truly, truly boring! I don't change. If people know me, I have not changed.
My mother was a working woman, and I was alone a lot. So I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.
Age and size are only numbers. It's the attitude you bring to clothes that make the difference.
I love skiing, I love the sun, I love my children, I love my grandchildren, I love my family and friends... and whatever I haven't done.
It's really easy to get colors right. It's really hard to get black - and neutrals - right. Black is certainly a color but it's also an illusion.
Evening is a time of real experimentation. You never want to look the same way.
Everything I do is a matter of heart, body and soul.
Delete the negative; accentuate the positive!
I really feel that we need to scale back and get to what is important on so many levels.
Design and style should work toward making you look good and feel good without a lot of effort so you can get on with the things that matter.
I truly believe that philanthropy and commerce can work together.
Business, numbers, negotiations, all that stuff I wouldn't go near.
Originally, back in 1992, DKNY started because I couldn't find a pair of jeans. I also wanted to dress my teenage daughter Gabby. So it was the perfect street wardrobe: jeans, anoraks, jumpsuits, boyfriend jackets, sweaters, skirts and dresses. Then DKNY grew into an entire lifestyle concept, including tailored clothes you wear to work.
I wouldn't be who I am without my husband, who handled the business end of Donna Karan so I could be creative.
Scheduling me is not easy, as most people know, because once I start, I don't stop.
It used to be only yoga, but now I do Pilates as well; I feel like I need the balance.
I give Reiki, which is energy, but I don't tell too many people that.
I design from instinct. It's the only way I know how to live. What feels good. What feels right. What is needed. Give me a problem and I will approach it creatively, from my gut.
I'm a nature bug.
Everything in life... has to have balance.
I feel very strongly about dresses on every level - a dress feels like underpinning.
I love building spaces: architecture, furniture, all of it, probably more than fashion. The development procedure is more tactile. It's about space and form and it's something you can share with other people.
Women should always take care of themselves first. It makes you more equipped to take care of others.
Everything comes out of what works for me.
My daughter Gabby very kindly once said that she thinks I was a better mother because I was doing a job I loved. I now think guilt is a universal part of being a mother. I used to think it was Jewish-mother guilt but now I think it is working-mother guilt.
I always thought what you wore underneath was as important as what you wear on top.
I believe in comfort. If you don't feel comfortable in your clothes, it's hard to think of anything else.
I'm really quite simple.
If it's a regular day, I won't wear any makeup, just leave my hair down and head out to the car.
When I first started designing, all women were dressed like men, and I said, 'Hey, guys, let's be women, put the two together - it's not either/or. Let's celebrate our bodies. Our bodies are different.'
I think I was a nomad in another life.
I've always been about the power of a woman - accentuating the positive, deleting the negative, whether you're talking her body, her voice or her leadership.
You don't have that much choice in your life, which is one of the big lessons I've learned. I was going to be a designer whether I wanted to be a designer or not.
I'd rather promote New York than anything else in this world because New York to me means the world.
Design is a constant challenge to balance comfort with luxe, the practical with the desirable.
We've come a long way. Power dressing now is designed to let the woman inside us come through.
