Karen Walker is a New Zealand born fashion designer with a reputation for her original, effortless and unpretentious style. Since her debut during Sydney Fashion Week in 1998, Karen Walker has kept to her cheerful, wearable m.o. She works in a palette of cheerful prints for modern bohos—think Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, whose free-spirited character wore several Walker looks.
But that hasn’t stopped Walker from creating wider, diverse looks that often have a more masculine edge. To wit: Her wares have been tapped for the red carpet by Björk, Sienna Miller, Claire Danes, Cate Blanchett, Kate Hudson, Claudia Schiffer, Madonna, Kelly Osbourne, Liv Tyler, Drew Barrymore, and Jennifer Lopez.
The line is carried at stores across the globe, from her native Antipodes to the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Her namesake label conveys a feeling of effortlessness: it has been described by the UK's Independent as "the kind of look that provides a means of appearing cool but not trying too hard, cute but not saccharine, alternative but not self consciously so. The fact that these clothes appear to be so totally not 'fashion' is what makes them so now."
Karen's collections are high casual with one foot in tailoring and the other in street wear. The reoccuring theme is taking extremes and fusing them together- masculine and feminine, tailored and sweet, luxury and non-luxury, dark and super-cute.
Her presentations all have 'the outsider' as their inspiration, celebrating the anti-‘it girl’ - characters like Ally Sheedy’s heavy fringed weirdo in ‘The Breakfast Club’, orphan Annie, Woody Allen’s persistently dissatisfied Annie Hall or an Amelia Earhart-inspired adventuress who, after crash landing in the jungle, turns her back on civilization in preference of tribal life.
Karen shows each season as part of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York. She also maintains permanent showrooms in London, New York, Tokyo and Sydney.
In addition to her main womenswear collections Karen also designs Karen Walker Jewellery in exclusive boutiques throughout New Zealand, Australia, Japan and the United States; Karen Walker Paints, a selection of paint colours sold through Resene paint stores throughout New Zealand and Australia, Karen Walker Eyewear sold through exclusive boutiques, eyewear stores and department stores in Australia, Japan, the U.K. and New Zealand and a lifestyle line in partnership with iconic New Zealand heritage brand Swanndri since March 2006.
More recent collaborative ventures include a makeup project with Boots 17 in the U.K., a t-shirt collaboration with London's hippest poet/fashion designer House of Holland and an upcoming collab with Ben Sherman shirts.
Karen was awarded the 2007 Prix de Marie Claire award for best creative talent. Touted as one of the most influential designers of our time by both i-D magazine and in 'Fashion Now 2' [Phaidon Press], Karen remains grounded in New Zealand with her husband Mikhail and their dog + two cats.
(read less)Karen Walker is a New Zealand born fashion designer with a reputation for her original, effortless and unpretentious style. Since her debut during Sydney Fashion Week in 1998, Karen Walker has kept to her cheerful, wearable m.o. She works in a palette of cheerful prints for modern bohos—think Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, whose free-spirited character wore several Walker looks.
But that hasn’t stopped Walker from creating wider, diverse looks that often have a more...
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