Tired of frumpy plus-size fashion, Rebel Wilson launches line

Sick of plus-size clothing that looks like something "your auntie would wear to a wedding", actor Rebel Wilson has created her own fashion line.

The Aussie Pitch Perfect star is set to launch her plus-size line for retailer Torrid on November 1.

Mic News reported that the collection contained "rock 'n' roll-inspired separates alongside cocktail-style dresses" and was a "punky, glittery and occasionally red carpet-worthy collection".

Wilson told People magazine she found a lot of plus-size clothing "didn't seem cool or on-trend."

"It was kind of like what your auntie would wear to a wedding. So it was a mission to find clothes that fit and were well-made... it definitely is an under-served market."

Her line includes 31 pieces in sizes 12 to 28.


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A New San Francisco Boutique for Fashion-Starved Locals

For a city ostensibly fixated on the future, San Francisco offers a retail fashion scene so safe it can seem retrograde. Sure, there are outposts of casual good taste and the on-trend-enough shops of Hayes Valley, but for women of a certain sartorial spirit — those seeking a world-class source of adventurous, cool-girl clothes by cult designers — the best the city has to offer sometimes feels like the e-commerce software invented here. Now, however, San Francisco has a brick-and-mortar boutique innovating at the same level as the city’s tech start-ups and artisanal coffee shrines. Nestled on a leafy residential street near Dolores Park in the Mission district, Anaïse isn’t new, exactly. It has for four years been operating as an online-only store from an even less likely location, San Jose, where its owner — Renee Friedrich, a former pharmacist from Maryland — moved “for love,” she says. (Friedrich’s Bay Area clients had been asking her to open a shop all along, though it’s perhaps telling that the majority of her online customers are from New York.)

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The high-ceilinged, whitewashed space, furnished with vintage space-age Italian lamps and hand-patchworked silk curtains that evoke a cross between Japanese boro cloth and lingerie, is devoted to what Friedrich calls “beauty in its subtlest forms”: gossamer dresses and statement coats from designers like Carven, A Detacher, and the insider-favored Italian label Hache; anti-It bags from Isaac Reina and Eatable of Many Orders; delicate, whimsical jewelry by Mirit Weinstock and Saskia Diez; and gauzy linen throws from Maison de Vacances. “I wanted to create an intimate, serene space filled with the things I love,” Friedrich says, “and I want people to feel like they’re walking into a friend’s home.” For fashion-starved locals, the experience is as satisfying as the sandwiches at Tartine Bakery a couple of blocks away.

Read More: http://fashionidolstyle.wordpress.com

Lady Gaga: Fashion is my art

Lady Gaga has never wanted to shock for the sake of it with her outfits, and insists she sees her fashion choices as a form of art.

The 29-year-old singer is no stranger to hitting the headlines for her eccentric sense of style, including the now infamous meat dress she wore to the MTV VMAs in 2010.

But when it comes to choosing ensembles, Gaga insists she doesn’t always opt for the ones that will cause a stir. Instead, she treats fashion as art and thoroughly enjoys each aspect of planning a look.

“It’s what I do,” Gaga told E! News. “That’s my art. And that’s what people don’t always really know about me. [They think] I’m always putting things on to be provocative or shocking for the sake of it.”

Gaga’s latest role sees her star as the villainous Countess in American Horror Story: Hotel. One of the first scenes fans will see the singer in involves her wearing a red “hunting outfit”. But while the clothes might look good on screen, they are anything but comfortable to wear.

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“That outfit is easily 35-50 pounds, and it’s got two corsets underneath it, and there’s a full body chain that’s all diamonds that’s, you know, not that comfortable,” Gaga said of the look. “And then, my hair is back, and there’s a net over the face and then a hat, and then a heavy jacket. And then, there’s a petticoat underneath the dress, and the gown is made of basically, like, Scarlett O’Hara’s curtains — it’s just so heavy.”


Gaga has previously showcased her acting skills in 2013’s Machete Kills and 2014’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. But it’s her new role as the Countess that is really testing whether the songstress can also make it as a successful actress. And Gaga adds the crazy fashion involved in the show adds a whole other level to her job.

“Actually, it’s not that easy to wear all of those things and to do it with poise and precision and to hit your mark every time, for a director,” she said. “So American Horror Story is actually really stretching me in a great way. It’s like I have to take the things that I’m good at and make them even better, and keep them the same every time but still loose so that [executive producer] Ryan [Murphy] gets something really truly organic from me.”

Nathalie Atkinson: Thanks to the internet, everyone’s a fashion critic

In the moments before a fashion show begins, I regularly think of this cautionary anecdote from American designer Elizabeth Hawes, who laments the bygone practice of “want” slips – those pieces of paper with customer wish-list items that department store sales clerks used to send to their buying office for consideration: “‘And when I asked the salesgirl for a coat without fur,’ say one hundred thousand women, ‘she just looked at me. ‘Madame,’ she said with raised eyebrows, ‘coats without fur are not being worn this season.’’”

“What could I do?” Hawes wryly observes. “The Duchess of Windsor was wearing a coat with fur that season and one hundred thousand women could do likewise or go without. The dictates of dear old Fashion come first.”

Every time I wish that Hawes, who died in 1971 just as the industry was on the cusp of its ready-to-wear heyday, were still around so we could toast the end of totalitarian trends together. Trends: soooo last century.

For decades, the accepted wisdom on the life cycle of fashion trends came from costume curator and historian James Laver’s Law, a timeline charting the obsolescence and recurrence of trends first described in his classic 1937 study Taste and Fashion. It’s obsolete now, ironically never to recur again. Laver didn’t account for the 21st century’s accelerated pace of fashion communication – all communication for that matter – and its effect on consumer appetite and power. That chart, in spirit, first dwindled to annual, then seasonal in/out lists in the 1990s but those, too, are obsolete.

Hawes was more prescient than Laver but even she could not have predicted the internet and its democratic effects. In an unwitting rebuttal to Taste and Fashion, her entertaining 1938 memoir Fashion Is Spinach: How to Beat the Fashion Racket is a critique of the then-modern industry, and today, it is more relevant than ever. The recent surge of interest – Dover published a new edition of her book in July – is not least because Hawes’ advocacy for the voice of the customer and denunciation of fad pronouncements delivered from on high (namely: Paris) was decades ahead of its time. But it took the internet (and its love child, social media) to achieve the trend-free style world Hawes advocated.

It isn’t just that interest in so-called new fads dissolves in the time lag it takes for designer samples to go from the runway to the shop rail (though they do: six months is a long time in a world of constantly refreshing updates); it’s that there are so many simultaneous fads that they add up to none. Brands and designers still push the looks and interpretations of the enduring three items – pants, dress, jackets – they want to sell each season, and make efforts to promote popularity through gifting, placement and advertising, but it’s everyone else who’s in charge. It’s been a steady dispersal of influence, starting with the peer factor on social media that I have in the past called the Yelp of fashion.

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Today’s leading arbiters and influencers are those who are online. Everyone is some kind of enthusiast or insider. And that has truly enabled subcultures of interest, of style, to connect – an exchange of virtual, non-stop want slips. If it’s not available in one shop it’s at another, possibly across the continent or globe, and can be requested. And labels are listening to what one woman, or 100,000 women, want. In the latest edition of fashion-house musical chairs during Paris fashion week, for example, Demna Gvasalia was appointed to the top creative post at Balenciaga – the one vacated by better-known Alexander Wang after a scant three years. It can’t have been lost on the Balenciaga brass that Gvasalia’s Vêtements label has been the darling of style watchers for some time, with a groundswell of appreciation most visible on social media. The power to make or break is collective and global.

The original influencers were true insiders – the select few editors, retail buyers and, in the case of couture, top clients actually invited to see a salon or runway presentation for themselves and mingle with the designer. Everyone else was in the dark, waiting to be told what would be available and acceptable. That traditional fashion media model was one of authority and, frankly, one of absolute power that promoted and made reputations. They were able to announce the sea change and their audience would shop and adjust hemlines, or whole silhouettes, accordingly. It was a delicately negotiated dictatorship.


The us/them identity crisis of traditional fashion media who initially bristled at their expanding ranks including non-traditional digital and blogging voices (interlopers!) has in the last couple of years been put to rest. We sit shoulder to shoulder crammed into front rows because the industry functions not as a hierarchy but an ecosystem and fashion critics like me offer both snap judgments and join in the flurry of blurred Vines and snaps at runway shows, and no more control information than decisions about what we’ll be wearing next season. Later, there will be sober second thought and, hopefully, meaningful cultural context, but first comes the more instant reaction and casual semiotics that the social medium and internet metabolism expect.

And trends? The latest denim lookbook from Madewell that’s on my desk showcases not one but several very different styles of jeans equally, with something for everyone– pegged black punk skinnies, dramatic hippie flares, slouchy overalls and high-waisted menswear styles. They’re not taking any chances. One hundred thousand women can’t be wrong.

Made In Chelsea star and entrepreneur on building a fashion brand

Oliver Proudlock is best-known for appearing in Channel 4 reality TV programme Made In Chelsea. He is also an entrepreneur, running clothing and lifestyle business Serge DeNimes. After starting up as a one-man band, Proudlock now has a team of four in his London office. Last week, in support of the Small Business Saturday campaign, he took part in a roundtable discussion with five small business owners from the fashion and jewellery sectors.

What inspired you to start the business?
I was always very interested in art and fashion. At school I spent the majority of my time in the art school painting. Then I went to Newcastle University, where I studied fine art for four years. I love art and painting but it can be quite lonely sometimes. And the thing I love about fashion is it’s very social and interactive.

I decided to move from art to fashion – it was a very scary move. So I started with a product I was really familiar with – T-shirts. I wanted to create the best T-shirt I could. At the moment graphic T-shirts are massively on trend.

You founded the business in 2011, just before Made In Chelsea producers got in touch. What impact did this have?
When I was deciding whether or not to do the show, one of the key things was how I was going to be perceived, because you never know with reality TV. So, how it would affect my brand, whether it would have a positive or negative effect, open doors or close doors? It obviously gave me a platform and a following, which helped me push my brand. For me [the business] was always my main passion. I love the show but it’s all about my brand.

How important is social media, and which channels work best?
So much is built on social media. We are doing a big push on that now, as well as marketing. For us, Instagram is the most beneficial. And for me personally as well. Maybe three to four years ago it was Twitter. People like to see imagery, they are too impatient to read however many characters it is on Twitter.

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How is the business doing?
The brand has developed in size and we have increased the range. Having started with T-shirts – a core collection of eight – we are now doing a lot more denim and working with wool and various other materials.

Each year we are doubling in size. We are now in 27 stores in the UK. I want to double that within the next two years. In the next five years I want to be wholesaling around the world, in America, Australia, and Asia.

Has your sense of style changed since being in the public eye?
No.

What’s a typical day like?
It depends upon the time of year. We are in that transition period now where we have just launched our autumn/winter collection and we are focusing on designing our spring/summer collection.

Who is your target audience?
Anyone from 17 to late 20s – style-conscious, young, creative individuals who aren’t scared to step outside of the mould.

How are you involved in the Small Business Saturday campaign?
I have been involved over the last two years as a small business. To promote small business on one day and get everyone to notice and help small businesses is an amazing thing. I spread the word through my social media handles as much as I can.

What have you learned since starting up?
When you are setting up a small business you have to have faith in yourself and the project and the product you are creating. If you don’t believe in it, noone else will. The key for any small business is being surrounded by a good team and like-minded people.

Sign up to become a member of the Guardian Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.

Donna Karan On Motherhood, Fashion And Designing The Perfect Pair Of Jeans

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, designer Donna Karan, has dressed people like Barbara Streisand and Bill Clinton when he was president. Her clothes have been worn on many red carpets, but her clothes are also worn at work and on the weekends by people who buy off the rack at shopping malls. A recent New York Times article described Karan's idea of fashion as almost anti-elitist. She was recently described in Women's Wear Daily as one of the most important designers in the history of American fashion. Karan started off as a designer at Anne Klein's and became Anne Klein's assistant. She eventually became the company's chief designer. Karan started her own company in 1984. In '89, she started her more affordable casual brand DKNY. Over the summer, she stepped down from her role as chief designer at Donna Karan International. She's focusing on philanthropic work and her company Urban Zen. She has a new memoir called "My Journey."

Donna Karan, welcome to FRESH AIR. So what are some of the designs that you introduced that you feel had an effect on the fashion world?

DONNA KARAN: Oh, I guess the bodysuit - Seven Easy Pieces, a philosophy of dressing that I felt for women that needed to be on the go from the minute they got up in the morning till going to work, travelling...

GROSS: Explain what Seven Easy Pieces are.

KARAN: The Seven Easy Pieces was a philosophy that I had that if you had these seven pieces you were great to go. I almost took it from a point of view of having a piece of luggage and what would you pack if you traveled. And it started with the bodysuit, and the reason the bodysuit started is because my practice of yoga. So I was used to wearing a bodysuit and that's how I started my day. And then either a pair of pants or a skirt or top of some sort - a sweater. I always felt that a leather jacket was great and a coat. My favorite piece of all is a scarf.

GROSS: Why?

KARAN: 'Cause a scarf is one thing that - you can wrap it around, you can hide what you want to hide and show what you want to show and it's sort of like your partner in crime.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: So the thing about your Seven Easy Pieces is that you could travel, you have these seven pieces and they could get you through daytime, eveningwear. You could, like, you know, match things to suit the occasion of the day and you wouldn't have to travel with this big wardrobe.

KARAN: Exactly.

GROSS: Well, you mention the bodysuit. The bodysuit - it's like a one-piece thing that kind of snaps under the crotch, yes?

KARAN: It's sort of like a leotard. Well, it is like a leotard, but it's something that I wore every day. And the beauty of the bodysuit - it had all different neck lines, different arms. Some were sleeveless. Some were off the shoulder, turtlenecks, V-necks.

GROSS: You've had two really big lines under your name - the Donna Karan New York and DKNY. What were the differences between the two?

KARAN: Well, Donna Karan was a personal wardrobe for myself and my friends. I really never imagined that Donna Karan would grow to the size that it grew. But it was really after designing Anne Klein I decided I wanted to have a little collection - small little collection - for me and my friends of my Seven Easy Pieces, starting with the bodysuit. And then my daughter and all her friends started wearing all my clothes and I needed a pair of jeans - voila, DKNY.

GROSS: Because of the jeans or because of your daughter (laughter)?

KARAN: Well, it was a double situation. All her friends were borrowing all my clothes and I said this has got to stop (laughter). And I realized there was a larger market out there for what we were doing. But I wanted to create sort of the Seven Easy Pieces that I had done for collection but through a more him and a her point of view that we all needed a pair jeans. We needed an anorak jacket. We needed a T-shirt. I love jumpsuits - a blazer and a pair jeans.

GROSS: So what makes a great pair of fitting jeans since we all are shaped a little differently (laughter)? Like, what's great fitting for you might not be for me. Do you know what I mean? How do you make a great fitting pair of jeans that will fit women with different body sizes?

KARAN: Figure types.

GROSS: And figure types, exactly.

KARAN: Generally speaking, it's better to have it lower in the front and a little higher in the back...

GROSS: Yes.

KARAN: ...You know, for the curvature of the body.

GROSS: (Laughter) I agree.

KARAN: So then when you sit down it doesn't fall down in the back. And also where the crotch is created...

GROSS: Yes.

KARAN: ...It's better to have the crotch a little bit towards the front as opposed to the back. And then the cut of the legs - depending on what kind of leg that you want.

GROSS: You were born into fashion. Your mother was a model who later became a showroom salesperson. Your father, Gabby Faske, made custom suits. He died in a car accident when you were a child. Your stepfather was in the clothing business, too. You say he was on the cheap side of the street, selling knockoffs and schmahtas (ph). Looking back on your life as you do in your book - looking back you think that your mother was bipolar. What makes you think that?

KARAN: I'm not sure the word would be bipolar, but my mother was a very stressed-out lady. She had a lot on her plate. She was a working woman in those days, which is quite unusual. She had two children - myself and my sister Gail. And she loved working. You know, the woman who went to work was one thing and then the woman who came home from work was a little bit of another (laughter).

GROSS: More high strung after work?

KARAN: Well, she had a lot of migraines. She had to do a lot of work, you know, whether it was the laundry or, you know, making sure she was prepared to go to work. And, you know, in those days, she would go to the beauty parlor on Saturdays and make sure her hair was right for the rest of the week. So it wasn't really fun. It was more - rotated around, you know, preparation for her either tired from a weeks, you know, a week of work or getting ready for the week to come.

GROSS: So how did you know you wanted to be a designer?

KARAN: I didn't. I didn't want to be a designer. The last thing I wanted to do was work on Seventh Avenue. I wanted to be a singer like Barbara Streisand and I wanted to be a dancer like Martha Graham. I loved the body. I loved the movement of the body. But I was neither of them. However, what I decided that I thought I would like to do is be an illustrator. I love drawing. I love drawing bodies. I love drawing fashion, but I wasn't thinking of myself as a designer in those days. And then I went for a job at Women's Wear Daily and they said, you know, I think maybe you should look into design instead of illustration (laughter). I saw that I could not sing like Barbara and I couldn't dance like Martha so I was sort of put into the fashion industry. I started working in Sherry's clothing store when I was young and I love dressing people. I loved helping them find the right clothes. I liked working in retail store, arranging it and making it look really pretty, making it easier for the customer. So I found that I was getting into fashion whether I liked it or not (laughter).

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GROSS: You started your career working with Anne Klein. You became a designer there and Anne Klein got cancer - breast cancer. And you took on an increasing role when she was sick. You had your first child just before she died, and you had hoped to be a stay-at-home mother but instead the company called you and said we need you. You have to be here or you have to help take over. How did you weigh in your mind what to do at that point?

KARAN: It was such a state of shock for me. They called me as I was having my baby. And I said, would you like to know whether I had a boy or girl? By the way, it was a little girl. Her name is Gabby. And they said, well, Anne's in the hospital and we have a collection due. And I said, well, I asked my doctor. I said, when can I go back to work? And he says, you just had, you know, a 10-pound baby girl. You can't go back to work so fast. You know, you need at least a week. So they said, well, we'll bring the work to you. So we went to my home in Long Island where I had just moved in. And the entire company came to my house and I thought how great - bagels and lox and everything else and see my little baby Gabby. But as soon as that happened, the phone rang and Anne died. I had no idea she was as sick as she was. In those days, people really didn't discuss the disease of cancer, and it was a shock. And a collection was due the next day. Actually, they postponed it a day because of the funeral, but the following day the collection did open and that was pre-fall. And then I had to push up my sleeves and get fall done. It wasn't a question of really thinking this out. It's amazing to me how all of a sudden things happen the way they happen.

GROSS: So you became, like, the chief designer at Anne Klein. And what happened to your dream of being a stay-at-home mother? Why was that your dream, first of all?

KARAN: Coming from a working woman, I said I promised I would never go to work, or I'd never be a working mom because I had come from...

GROSS: Because your mother has paid so little attention to you.

KARAN: I had come from a working mom. Just that I realized how do you do it all? It's really quite hard. It's not an easy - you know, people ask me how do you do it today? And I'm saying it's not easy.

GROSS: And you saw how stressed out she was.

KARAN: Yeah, and I wanted to have the opportunity to stay home with my daughter, but I guess that's not what the universe had in mind for me.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Donna Karan, the designer - the famous designer. She has a new memoir called "My Journey." Let's take a short break. Then we'll talk some more. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR, and if you're just joining us, my guest is designer Donna Karan. She has a new memoir called "My Journey." I want to get back to Anne Klein for a moment.

KARAN: Sure.

GROSS: We talked about how her death from breast cancer affected your career and your plans - how it upended your plans to be a stay-at-home mother. But I'm sure you were also very close to her as a person. She had guided you through the early part of your career and given you really big breaks. I'm assuming she was probably the first colleague you were close to who you lost that way. What impact did it have on you, personally, her death? And to lose someone you were close to and know that, you know, that these things...

KARAN: Happen (laughter).

GROSS: Yeah, that these things happen, yeah.

KARAN: I was in a state of shock. Anne was like my mom - my second mom. We did everything together. We worked together. I spent the weekends together. She hadn't had any children, and it just kind of worked for both of us. And I think we were sort of the 24/7 working pair, if that makes any sense - that we'd work and play and kind of hang out together. I remember a lot of times hanging out at her beach house in Westhampton.

GROSS: Did that lead to any conflicts, being, you know, close friends and hanging out together in your off time as well as working together?

KARAN: I never felt that she was my friend as much as my mentor.

GROSS: You left Anne Klein, the company, in an unusual way. After she died, you were their chief designer for a while. They told you that your heart wasn't in the company anymore, and you had to leave. But they also told you if you wanted to start your own company, that they would be your business partners. Would you explain that exchange little bit?

KARAN: No, I was really surprised. I had this idea of starting a - as I said to you - a small little company for me and my friends, just seven easy pieces. I just wanted to design, really, a little company. So I figured I could do Anne Klein. I did Anne Klein, too. And I felt that was rather easy. But my bosses at the time felt that that wouldn't work. And they wanted a hundred percent, you know, attention put on Anne Klein, which I could understand now, believe me. And they said, you know, basically that I was fired (laughter). And I go, what? What do you mean I'm fired? And they said, you're fired, but we'll put you into business. And you could do Donna Karan. And I was kind of shocked by the whole thing, but I started Donna Karan right after working at Anne Klein for over 10 years.

GROSS: Did you see this as a compliment or an insult?

KARAN: Both.

GROSS: On one hand, they were throwing you out the door and the other hand, were saying, we're going to help you start your own company - your own brand.

KARAN: Exactly.

GROSS: Yeah.

KARAN: I don't think anybody had realized that Donna Karan would be the size company that it became, nor DKNY, for that matter.

GROSS: Well, your second husband, Stephan Weiss, who became your business partner, he -sounds like he really helped build the company on the business end.

KARAN: Well, he was kind of wonderful. He kind of kept my partners and everybody - all the stuff that I didn't want to deal with, Stephan dealt with. That was great (laughter). But Stephan was an artist, and I was really shocked by his genius at business. And he was the one who said that we should start a beauty company. So Stephan, in our own bedroom, would mix the products. He'd design the bottles. He mixed the product line and everything. And we started to become in the fragrance business that Stephan himself ran.

GROSS: There's a funny scene in the book where you wake up, and your husband has to go a business meeting. And he is wearing a brown plaid suit, a tan shirt and a wide tie.

And you...

KARAN: Oh, my God.

GROSS: ...Write that, like, you almost died looking at him. And you write, if anything could've made me fall out of love with Stephan, that was it. I felt like I'd woken up to a stranger, a man who bore no relationship to the sexy jeans-wearing guy I'd gone to bed with. Why was that suit so upsetting? (Laughter).

KARAN: It was really in your face. It was almost like a clown suit (laughter) is the only way that I could describe it, sort of this brown and beige plaid suit. And I had seen, you know, Stephan as a pair jeans and a little sexy sweater, top and stuff like that. And all of a sudden, I see him - wake up one morning, and I see him in this suit. And this is way before we got married.

GROSS: Oh, uh huh...

KARAN: This is when we first met him.

GROSS: OK. (Laughter).

KARAN: So I was at Parsons School of Design, and there he was, you know, being the antithesis of everything that I would not want to be with it all.

GROSS: (Laughter). So how somebody dressed was very important to you 'cause that was your thing.

KARAN: Well, I'm a very visceral person. So it's what I see, what I feel, what I touch, what I smell. All of these, you know, senses are very, very heightened as a designer. So, yeah, what I see I have - has an effect on me (laughter).

GROSS: Did you start dressing him after that?

KARAN: Yeah.

GROSS: (Laughter).

KARAN: He looked much better in Giorgio Armani.

GROSS: (Laughter).

If you're just joining us, my guest is designer Donna Karan. She has a new memoir called "My Journey."

Your husband died of lung cancer in 2001. And before he died, he sold your company so that you wouldn't have to worry about the business end of things and so that the family would have financial security after he was gone. So that meant this huge change in your life, both professionally and personally. You no longer owned your company, and you no longer had your husband. What did you do to survive that period?

KARAN: What I will I say...

GROSS: Oh, should we throw in that 9/11 happened just a couple of months after your husband died? And you lived in Manhattan and worked in Manhattan.

KARAN: After Steve passed, I felt very alone. I felt, you know - how was I going to do this without him? And I had a collection due that was coming up in September. And at that time, 9/11 had happened. And that was - our anniversary was that day...

GROSS: Your anniversary was September 11?

KARAN: Our anniversary's September 11. So the night before, I couldn't go to sleep. I figured - how am I going to do a show? My husband's not going to be there, and it's our anniversary. So I wanted to take a piece of his sculpture, which was a very large piece of sculpture and have it sit at - I was showing at the Armory at the time. So I asked somebody to please deliver one of my husband's pieces, so at least I'd feel that - he had a wire sculpture with a man sitting in a chair. And I thought that would be very cool, of having that, because the collection was very much inspired by him, and it had a lot of wiring.

But then I got a call that morning. I got woken up. I hadn't slept the night before. And somebody said to me, Donna, life will never be the same. And we were living down on Wooster Street. And I looked outside the window, and I saw what was happening, you know, on TV. It was September 11, and they had just hit the trade center. And Patti Cohen, who was in charge of PR and public relations, called and said, don't worry, Donna, the show's going on. And I said, that's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of. You know, we have a catastrophe on our hands here right now. I can't imagine, you know, doing shows. She said, well, uptown seemed OK. And then the second plane hit. And then, all of a sudden, you know, the city was in complete, utter panic.

But the show did not go on. And what we did was - they had called us and said, could we use your armory as a holding ground because we felt all the hospitals would be completely jammed up? I said, absolutely, do whatever you need to do. And, unfortunately, nobody got to be at the armory, and even in the hospitals, you know. People hadn't made it.

GROSS: There wasn't that many people to rescue because they were killed.

KARAN: That's correct.

GROSS: You've left your company as of July. Why did you leave?

KARAN: It was a very difficult question. I don't ever feel like I left the company because I feel that the company is there (laughter). But I did realize - and I had been struggling for over past few years is - when I started Urban Zen, I was doing Urban Zen. I was doing Donna Karan. I was doing DKNY. And that was an awful lot to design and be the mother and the grandmother and all of that and the woman who was traveling all over the world. I said there are only X amount of hours in the day, and to do anything right, you know, I had maybe had taken on too much, you know, at this stage of life that I'm at. I had a future that I was getting older, and I wanted to say, you know - how did I want to spend the next 10 years of my life?

GROSS: And it still feels like the right decision?

KARAN: Now, I'm going through a little bit more difficult process. You know, it is a transition that I'm going through. There's no question that I know that I'm doing the right thing. But I still, you know, come September when the shows were going on, I'm going, oh, my God. I don't have to do a show.

GROSS: Donna Karan, thank you so much for talking with us.

KARAN: My pleasure.

GROSS: Donna Karan has written a new memoir called "My Journey." After we take a short break, Berkeley Breathed will tell us why he's returned after a long break and restarted his popular comic strip, "Bloom County." I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

Hungarian Photographer's Refugee-Themed Fashion Photoshoot Sparks Outrage on Social Media

A Hungarian photographer's recent refugee-themed fashion photo shoot -- including scantily clad models wearing headscarves -- has sparked outrage on social media.

Some of Norbert Baska's photographs from the shoot show a model wearing a headscarves while baring skin, while others show the same model copying the way refugees have been dragged by police to stop them from crossing the border. Most of the photos are are set against the backdrop of barbed wire, signifying the 25-mile barbed wire fence recently put up on Hungary's border with Croatia.

The shoot, which is filed under the "FASHION" section of Baska's official website, is titled "DER MIGRANT," which is German for "The Migrant."

Many users on social media have referred to the shoot as "migrant chic" and criticized the way it sexualizes the refugee crisis and trivializes the tragedy on Hungary's border.

The country recently made headlines after its parliament approved the use of rubber bullets, tear gas and grenades against refugees trying to cross the border.

"Well now this is utterly sick," Twitter user @LewisKayBush wrote. "'Migrant chic' fashion shoot."

PHOTO: Model Monicka Jablonczky is pictured here in a photo series titled “DERS MIGRANT” styled by Mark Kiss and with makeup done by Mua Eszter Balla.Norbert Baska
Model Monicka Jablonczky is pictured here in a photo series titled “DERS MIGRANT” styled by Mark Kiss and with makeup done by Mua Eszter Balla.more +
Twitter user @chmeredith shared the photos, saying, "Apparently this migrant and refugee inspired photoshoot is 'raising awareness' about the totally chic crisis," Twitter user @chmeredith wrote.

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"Wow that designer definitely lacks empathy that he would use refugee crisis as a fashion shoot concept," another user @excogitate123 commented.

PHOTO: Model Monicka Jablonczky is pictured here in a photo series titled “DERS MIGRANT” styled by Mark Kiss and with makeup done by Mua Eszter Balla.Norbert Baska
Model Monicka Jablonczky is pictured here in a photo series titled “DERS MIGRANT” styled by Mark Kiss and with makeup done by Mua Eszter Balla.more +
Despite such reactions, Baska told ABC News that he stands by his work and that he actually "expected extreme reactions."

"The shooting is not intended to glamourize this clearly bad situation, but rather," he said, "to draw the attention to the problem and make people think about it. Artists around the world regularly attract the public’s attention to current problems through ‘shocking’ installations and pictures. This is another example of such art."

He said the shoot was designed to shed light on contradictory information about the migrant situation.

"This is exactly what we wanted to picture: you see a suffering woman, who is also beautiful and despite her situation, has some high quality pieces of outfit and an smartphone," he said in the statement.

Baska's full statement on his photoshoot is available here.