OBT Magazine

New York – Donna Karan may have dropped out of Parsons School of Design when she was a sophomore - Anne Klein herself offered the fledgling designer a job that she couldn't refuse - but that doesn't mean she doesn't put a high premium on fashion education.

"I was so in awe of 7th Avenue, that I really didn't know what a gift it is to be in school, that opportunity of knowledge and time to really find your own essence and to explore your own abilities," said Karan.

Karan, who spoke at a Parsons School of Design event about her career on Thursday, Feb. 4, in New York, helped initiate a new MFA program at the school, called "Fashion Design and Society," a studio-based program fostering experimentation that will be led by Shelley Fox, the Donna Karan professor of fashion at Parsons.

The school also announced the creation of an MA in Fashion Studies, a theory-based program. Both programs will launch this fall.

For Karan, she felt there was a void in the U.S. for a graduate program in fashion that pushed students further creatively and conceptually than a B.A. program is able to, delving even deeper into their roles as designers in the context of the larger society for whom they are designing.

Karan herself is one such designer whose collections have addressed particular societal concerns - from working women with her most famous, and revolutionary, collection, "Seven Easy Pieces," to her philanthropic work with HIV/AIDS.

On Monday, Feb. 8, Karan will launch her latest philanthropic initiative, "Tent Today, Home Tomorrow," addressing the recent earthquake disaster in Haiti.

"For $1,000, you can buy a tent for someone in Haiti," said Karan. "My golden dream is to build a community in Haiti, to help build a sustainable model, where we can help the creativity, support the creativity and involve ourselves with people who need our hand."

Karan also mentioned helping set up an educational system and a manufacturing system.

"I really think conscious consumerism is where it's at," Karan told Dr. Valerie Steele, chief curator at The Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology, who moderated the Thursday evening conversation.

"We're going through a feminine period right now," continued Karan. "I think we've been living in a masculine world, and what has just happened to our masculine world, it's crashed. And now it's the birth of the feminine. It's the birth of the mothering and the caring and all those aspects. And I think that's what compels me as a designer today. It's not just looking at wearing what's on the outside, but truly the essence of what life is all about. Our social responsibility as fashion designers is probably bigger than ever before."

Karan also voiced some strong words about the current fashion cycle that shows collections six months in advance, complaining that consumers were being given too much information.

"When I launched my company, the shows were in April and May," said Karan. "Now they're in February. My question to this industry - and I say it to myself and my own company, is, why am I showing clothes in February? I don't want the consumer to see, next week, what is going to be in the stores in fall! It's confusing."

Asked Dr. Steele, "How are we going to turn around this huge machine?"

"It's very simple. We just stop," emphasized Karan. "We go to the stores and say, 'Okay, no more getting fall clothes in July or June so that they go on sale in September when the weather hasn't changed! We have to go with a system where we're talking in seasons. What we've conditioned the consumers to do is buy on sale. Unless we change the system, it's not going to happen."

Would Karan do away with fashion shows altogether?

"I would shift the fashion shows," Karan said. "We need fashion shows, we need delivery times, yes. That's industry. It is not for the general public. So the world of communication has to stop. It doesn't go out on the wire, it doesn't go out on the Internet so that the manufacturers can copy our designs. I mean, we're killing our own industry! There's too much information going out there. We have to learn the word 'restriction.'"

And for those wondering what the 2010 version of Donna Karan's top easy pieces are, her current favorites include her necklace of black carved beads from Senegal, a cozy scarf and a belt bag - otherwise known as a "fanny pack."

Joking that no one else in fashion seemed to share in this vision of hers, Karan insisted: "I think belt bags are where it's at, guys!"

Accessories designers, take note.