Word: karan
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...SPRAY THE MODELS! PATTI, COULD you get me some perfume?" Straight pins bristling from her mouth, safety pins stuck on the black cashmere sweater wrapped around her waist, designer Donna Karan is stalking the runway where she is about to present her spring collection to the fashion flock. She was up for most of the night, coping with the usual crises. The oversize linen hats, for instance. A nice theatrical touch, but they didn't fit through the entrance to the runway. (The models learned to take them off and put them back on, fast.) Then there was the jewelry...
...models begin striding out for the show, Karan is in constant motion behind the curtain, tucking, smoothing, adjusting angles by an imperceptible (to anyone but her) fraction of an inch. Nothing escapes her eye. Everything has to be perfect. "Are you accessorized? . . . I told you I need a beret! . . . Lynn, move the belt!" From out on the runway comes the sound of Madonna singing her version of Peggy Lee's Fever as each model passes through Karan's last-minute scrutiny and touch-up. "Little black glasses! Who's next...
Such painstaking, relentless attention to detail, fueled by an insatiable drive, defines everything Karan does. It has made her the powerhouse of Seventh Avenue, the darling of the fashion faithful, the quintessential stressed-out New York City career woman-cum-celebrity. She is the only female interloper in the all-boys club of leading U.S. designers, whose longtime members are Ralph, Calvin, Bill, Geoffrey and Oscar. The future of American retailing, though, may belong to Donna...
Since vanity and taste are with us always, TIME asked top designers for their daydreams of a half-century hence. Christian Lacroix and visionary film director Tim Burton favor technology to overcome environment. Donna Karan merges clothing with communications gear. Geoffrey Beene believes that men will dump the suit -- as he already has. Giorgio Armani, noting that the basic 1940s outline is still chic, plumps for his easy elegant styles, be they last year's or next millennium...
...Faludi's thesis by showing that women were also often portrayed as strong and fulfilled. Was Hope Steadman any more an archetype of the '80s than Murphy Brown? The fashion press may have lauded Christian Lacroix's baby-doll dresses, but real women ignored them in favor of Donna Karan's comfortable professional clothes, or the Gap's gender-neutral everyday wear. For every virulent misogynist, such as Andrew Dice Clay or rappers with songs about mutilating "bitches," there was a Sandra Bernhard, a Lily Tomlin, above all a Roseanne Arnold...