Donna Karan Quotes

I start my day with a mind, body, soul practice – yoga, Pilates or meditation.

Delete the negative; accentuate the positive!

I design from instinct. It’s the only way I know how to live. What feels good. What feels right. What is needed. Give me a problem and I will approach it creatively, from my gut.

I give Reiki, which is energy, but I don’t tell too many people that.

If it’s a regular day, I won’t wear any makeup, just leave my hair down and head out to the car.

I’m really quite simple.

Design is a constant challenge to balance comfort with luxe, the practical with the desirable.

I’d rather promote New York than anything else in this world because New York to me means the world.

I love building spaces: architecture, furniture, all of it, probably more than fashion. The development procedure is more tactile. It’s about space and form and it’s something you can share with other people.

I live for what I haven’t done.

Business, numbers, negotiations, all that stuff I wouldn’t go near.

I think I was a nomad in another life.

We’ve come a long way. Power dressing now is designed to let the woman inside us come through.

Everything comes out of what works for me.

I feel very strongly about dresses on every level – a dress feels like underpinning.

I always thought what you wore underneath was as important as what you wear on top.

I truly believe that philanthropy and commerce can work together.

Basically, I was a hippie and still am a flower child.

I wouldn’t be who I am without my husband, who handled the business end of Donna Karan so I could be creative.

I’m a nature bug.

Everything in life… has to have balance.

I’ve always been about the power of a woman – accentuating the positive, deleting the negative, whether you’re talking her body, her voice or her leadership.

If I weren’t doing what I’m doing today… I’d be traveling around the world on the back of a motorcycle.

My daughter Gabby very kindly once said that she thinks I was a better mother because I was doing a job I loved. I now think guilt is a universal part of being a mother. I used to think it was Jewish-mother guilt but now I think it is working-mother guilt.

Scheduling me is not easy, as most people know, because once I start, I don’t stop.

I love skiing, I love the sun, I love my children, I love my grandchildren, I love my family and friends… and whatever I haven’t done.

To me, design and style should work toward making you look good and feel good without a lot of effort – so you can get on with the things that matter.

I really feel that we need to scale back and get to what is important on so many levels.

When I first started designing, all women were dressed like men, and I said, ‘Hey, guys, let’s be women, put the two together – it’s not either/or. Let’s celebrate our bodies. Our bodies are different.’

My mother was a working woman, and I was alone a lot. So I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.

You don’t have that much choice in your life, which is one of the big lessons I’ve learned. I was going to be a designer whether I wanted to be a designer or not.

Design and style should work toward making you look good and feel good without a lot of effort so you can get on with the things that matter.

Everything I do is a matter of heart, body and soul.