Donna Karan may be the quintessential New Yorker, but her soul is in L.A.
"I'm a Malibu freak," she said last week, walking into her new Urban Zen pop-up shop on Robertson Boulevard, dressed in jodhpur pants, a twist-front jersey top and a fringed cardigan, all from her Urban Zen line, and a leather bead necklace from Senegal. "All my friends tell me to move here, but it's hard to tell that to Mayor Bloomberg."
By friends, she means Barbra Streisand, at whose Malibu house she is a frequent guest, Demi and Ashton, and the rest of Hollywood's spiritually enlightened set.
The store, which smells of an incense called Thieves and glows with natural light, is right up their alley. It's a New Age temple, holistic spa and art gallery rolled into one. It's also Karan's take on conscientious consumption: selling luxury items such as $2,495 Indian cashmere blankets and $95 T-shirts made by children in Kenya living with HIV, with 10% of the profits benefiting charity.
The space is filled with pieces from L.A. artists, as well as artifacts from Africa, India, Thailand and Tibet that Karan has collected on her travels. A long, rustic table on loan from Ray Azoulay's store Obsolete Inc. in Venice displays masks by Los Angeles sculptor Bill Lagattuta. Shelves are made from wood pieces salvaged from Alice Tully Hall in New York. Lining the walls are black-and-white photos by Karan's dear friend Lynn Kohlman, a fashion model and photographer who died of breast and brain cancer this year. There are large, beanbag-like Tibetan cushions ($6,500) to sit on, and yogi tea is always brewing.
It's easy to see why Karan is so at home in Southern California. Her devotion to Eastern philosophy and yoga and her nomadic lifestyle over the last decade (she travels often to Africa and Asia to do humanitarian work) have made her less about Seventh Avenue and more about the Seventh Ray.
So, the Urban Zen line features the kind of pieces that Streisand and her posse might wear on chilly Malibu nights, or mornings on the way to yoga. Think cashmere bodysuits ($495), leggings ($995) and tie-dyed scarves ($995), perfect for layering; fringed suede jackets ($3,495) and utilitarian jumpsuits ($1,295), all with an artisanal feel. Many of the fabrics are recycled and re-dyed.
