Some women leave me sitting back in my chair staring at the computer in astonishment. Donna Karan is one of them and her latest creation, Urban Zen, has left me quite speechless. I’ve been wanting to write about her for a while, but have been quite literally dumfounded.
Urban Zen is the type of organization that sprouted from the seeds of both inspiration and tragedy. It’s organic in it’s concept, integrated, and a multi-faceted collaboration. It takes the best of all that the iconoclast has learned to love and brings it into one place. That she chose to partner with designer Sonja Nutall has me giddy from the get-go, and I’m a decidedly ‘un-giddy’ person.
Urban Zen is a centre of sorts with a pop-up store of inspired design offering crafted quality times ranging from decor to fashion and accessories. The mandate of the centre is to focus on challenges from health care to education in a collaborative fashion–with style, of course.
Urban Zen has been inspired to preserve the wisdom of various cultures with the goal of assisting the malaise of our current head nodding, mainstream, corporate droning, commercially hegemonic society. Those are my words, not hers.
Urban Zen is “a space for like-minded individuals and organizations to connect and communicate with a call to action to create change through collaboration.” This is an ambitious project for a woman who easily could have sat back and rested on the many laurels she has already earned in her career. The more you read, the more you want to know and I am somewhat enamoured at the moment with this tour-de-force: Ms. Donna Karan (and her design partner, Sonja Nutall). New York: I’m on my way.
Naturality Design 