NEW YORK — That Donna Karan enjoys her travels is no secret. In fact, it’s an integral part to her design ethos — one that she is also channeling into the second edition of the Urban Zen Holiday Marketplace.
The pop-up shopping concept, which she tested during the last holiday season, embraces the idea of soulful economy, offering several impressive installations of merch with a humanitarian bent and the goal of making a philanthropic difference.
During a walk-through at her studio space on Greenwich Street, she called last year’s event “an experiment. Now I realize that this is how I want to live all the time. I never want this to come down.”
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In addition to Karan favorites such as art and furniture by Ilana Goor and Lauren Bush Lauren’s Feed bags, there are plenty of new lines available in the market, among them sculptures by Elizabeth Jordan made from laboratory beakers and cashmere toys, hats, and blankets from Norlha in Tibet. There is also a tech-y element: The App Store from Evan Desmond Yee is a mock Apple shop-in-shop offering the Brooklyn artist’s interpretations of the iPhone and gadgets for it, including the iFlip, an hourglass sand timer filled with crushed iPhones, and the Nocuous Rift, which, when attached to the actual iPhone, alters the display screen into a prism.
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Karan found many of these vendors on her travels and, as she put it, “My shopping. God forbid I should stop shopping.”
Proceeds go toward the Urban Zen Foundation as well as some of the artisans’ charitable organizations. “It’s a collective consciousness, people coming together who want to make a difference in the world,” said the designer, who believes the concept of a soulful economy is quickly catching on — “showing the heart and soul that goes into a product line, so it’s not just the same stuff. You just don’t buy something, it has to have a meaning and a soul behind it.”
Projects such as these demonstrate the evolution of Urban Zen, which recently began wholesaling its apparel, and Karan’s commitment to the venture. Asked if she was spending increasingly more time on Urban Zen, the designer stressed her commitment to Donna Karan International.
“I care about Urban Zen, it’s a baby,” she said. “There are very few of us here. I don’t have the infrastructure here that I have at Donna Karan. I have amazing people I have trained at Donna Karan and it’s all there. Here, it’s like being a child again, starting from scratch and it’s very personal. It’s about clothes that I personally want and need, and when I am at Donna Karan, it’s an artistic expression that is pure.”
As for her holiday marketplace message, she hopes it inspires people to explore the world. “I want them to walk away and say, ‘I want to go there. I want to go to Haiti. I want to go to Bali.’ I told Calvin [Klein] that I have seen so many amazing things from Papua New Guinea, I want to go to Papua New Guinea. Now I have seen this fabric from Tibet, I want to go to Tibet.”
And if her holiday wishes come true, the marketplace will become permanently installed. “That’s the next step,” Karan said with a smile.