Will The Real Karen Walker Please Stand Up?

Photo / Babiche Martens

The New Zealand designer has found a way to serve her loyal customers outside the traditional framework of the industry. Jessica Beresford looks at the evolution of her business — from attention-grabbing campaigns and New York Fashion Week shows to today.

Photo / Babiche Martens

The New Zealand designer has found a way to serve her loyal customers outside the traditional framework of the industry. Jessica Beresford looks at the evolution of her business — from attention-grabbing campaigns and New York Fashion Week shows to today.

When Karen Walker opens the door to her Ponsonby home, a Victorian villa on a street bursting with the heritage style, she seems more relaxed than the version of her I have previously encountered: dressed in a loose white shirt and Levi’s 501 jeans, her cropped hair flecked with grey, wearing only a minute amount of makeup around her icy blue eyes.

She welcomes me into the home she shares with husband Mikhail Gherman, their teenage daughter Valentina and fair labradoodle Laika, who follows me around, angling for a scratch. Inside it’s light-filled and minimalistic, save for a few touches of eccentricity; a true Karen Walker signature. The designer, Auckland-bornand-raised and now 54, duly prepares a pot of Earl Grey, which she serves on the sunny deck alongside a spread of afternoon tea.

Also on the table for discussion: Karen Walker’s business, still wholly owned by herself and Mikhail after 35 years, which has undergone a fairly radical shift in priority over the past few years. Karen is now more of a retailer — a move that was necessary to better serve her community.

“I think change is at the heart of it, and you can’t survive without change,” says Karen. “But I think a good brand will always retain something at its heart. My test of what separates a brand from a business is that you can put your hand over the name and still know who it is.”

Karen at home with Laika. Photo / Babiche Martens

“I think a good brand will always retain something at its heart. My test of what separates a brand from a business is that you can put your hand over the name and still know who it is.”

Karen Walker has cultivated brand recognition since she launched her fashion label, in 1988, when she was just 18 and still at fashion school, with “$100 start-up capital”. She had met Mikhail, the former Soviet Union refugee who would become her husband, the previous year, and together they set up the business, with Karen designing clothes and Mikhail — who later worked in advertising — as a creative director. Karen started with a floral shirt, which she made for a friend, and steadily built up her collections, as well as a loyal following in Auckland.

_{Karen and Mikhail at their former workroom in Grey Lynn, 2007. Photo / Dean Purcell}

When she opened her first shop in 1993 in Newmarket, on the corner of Nuffield and Balm streets and opposite a KFC, the duo took an uncouth approach to marketing it: Mikhail drew a version of the Colonel, with a mohawk and love hearts as eyes, announcing “Karen Walker Is Coming”, to subvert the mundanity of its fast-food neighbours.

Karen and Mikhail have always been masters in marketing the brand, trading in a tongue-in-cheek subversion. One of their early campaigns cast supermodel Lorraine Downes — at the time a glamorous beauty queen and wife of an All Black — as an assassin with a knife; another pictured models in Karen Walker designs alongside recipes for cakes.

_{Mikhail's irreverent branding design for Karen Walker's Newmarket opening, 1993.}

“It was always fun working with Karen and Mikhail, and you knew it wasn’t ever just going to be your average fashion photo of a model standing there,” says photographer Derek Henderson, who began working with the brand in the mid-90s. “She would be up to something, whatever that was.” Derek’s earliest campaign, Superheroes, looked at fashion as being something with superpowers, and featured models decked out in masks and capes.

_{Former Miss New Zealand Lorraine Downes as an assassin from an early campaign. Photo / Karl Pierard}

_{Karen and Mikhail at their former workroom in Grey Lynn, 2007. Photo / Dean Purcell}

Karen Walker has cultivated brand recognition since she launched her fashion label, in 1988, when she was just 18 and still at fashion school, with “$100 start-up capital”. She had met Mikhail, the former Soviet Union refugee who would become her husband, the previous year, and together they set up the business, with Karen designing clothes and Mikhail — who later worked in advertising — as a creative director. Karen started with a floral shirt, which she made for a friend, and steadily built up her collections, as well as a loyal following in Auckland.

_{Mikhail's irreverent branding design for Karen Walker's Newmarket opening, 1993.}

When she opened her first shop in 1993 in Newmarket, on the corner of Nuffield and Balm streets and opposite a KFC, the duo took an uncouth approach to marketing it: Mikhail drew a version of the Colonel, with a mohawk and love hearts as eyes, announcing “Karen Walker Is Coming”, to subvert the mundanity of its fast-food neighbours.

Karen and Mikhail have always been masters in marketing the brand, trading in a tongue-in-cheek subversion. One of their early campaigns cast supermodel Lorraine Downes — at the time a glamorous beauty queen and wife of an All Black — as an assassin with a knife; another pictured models in Karen Walker designs alongside recipes for cakes.

Former Miss New Zealand Lorraine Downes as an assassin from an early campaign. Photo / Karl Pierard

“It was always fun working with Karen and Mikhail, and you knew it wasn’t ever just going to be your average fashion photo of a model standing there,” says photographer Derek Henderson, who began working with the brand in the mid-90s. “She would be up to something, whatever that was.” Derek’s earliest campaign, Superheroes, looked at fashion as being something with superpowers, and featured models decked out in masks and capes.

Karen during a fitting for her 'Perfect Day' collection in 2010 with model Samantha Shorter. The collection also debuted her collaboration with footwear brand Beau Coops.

Daddy’s Gone Strange, a collection of reworked tailoring inspired by Eraserhead, showed at Hong Kong Fashion Week in 1998, and caught the attention of a buyer at Barney’s in New York, which swiftly picked up the brand. It was from this same collection that Madonna wore a pair of trousers — a flat-front, low-rise, cigarette style — to perform at the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles, cementing Karen’s early international appeal.

Madonna wearing Karen Walker's low-rise cigarette trousers at the MTV Video Music wards in 1998.

“They were such a big seller for us, particularly in America — we couldn’t make enough,” says Mikhail. “We reissued them recently, because the low-cut is exactly what everyone is into now, styled with a ribbed singlet — just like Madge wore back then.”

London Fashion Week, 2002.

From there, the brand took off overseas: Karen had her first solo show at London Fashion Week in 2002, which debuted the designer’s signature Runaway girl motif — a silhouette inspired by Victorian shadow portraits drawn by Mikhail — which featured on T-shirts, a trucker cap and a crystal necklace. By the end of 2003, she had showrooms representing her around the world and 110 stockists globally including in the United States, France, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Japan and Australia.

“The Times described us once when we were showing in London as elegant and eccentric. In Japan, it was just the right amount of poison,” says Karen.

Daddy’s Gone Strange, a collection of reworked tailoring inspired by Eraserhead, showed at Hong Kong Fashion Week in 1998, and caught the attention of a buyer at Barney’s in New York, which swiftly picked up the brand. It was from this same collection that Madonna wore a pair of trousers — a flat-front, low-rise, cigarette style — to perform at the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles, cementing Karen’s early international appeal.

_{Karen during a fitting for her 'Perfect Day' collection in 2010 with model Samantha Shorter. The collection also debuted her collaboration with footwear brand Beau Coops.}

“They were such a big seller for us, particularly in America — we couldn’t make enough,” says Mikhail. “We reissued them recently, because the low-cut is exactly what everyone is into now, styled with a ribbed singlet — just like Madge wore back then.”

_{Madonna wearing Karen Walker's low-rise cigarette trousers at the MTV Video Music wards in 1998.}

From there, the brand took off overseas: Karen had her first solo show at London Fashion Week in 2002, which debuted the designer’s signature Runaway girl motif — a silhouette inspired by Victorian shadow portraits drawn by Mikhail — which featured on T-shirts, a trucker cap and a crystal necklace. By the end of 2003, she had showrooms representing her around the world and 110 stockists globally including in the United States, France, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Japan and Australia.

“The Times described us once when we were showing in London as elegant and eccentric. In Japan, it was just the right amount of poison,” says Karen.

_{London Fashion Week, 2002.}

Karen’s first major brand diversification — of which there have been many — came with the launch of her fine jewellery, in 2003, which she presented alongside a ready-to-wear collection at New Zealand Fashion Week, one of only two times she’s participated in the event. The line included diamond-encrusted skulls, topaz cocktail rings and charm bracelets with little Runaway girl charms dangling off them. The cartoonish designs were meant to inject fun into fine jewellery, and subvert the idea of fusty heirlooms; the first collection ran alongside a campaign styled by interior designer Katie Lockhart and photographed by Derek, with a giant, holey, piece of cheese and a taxidermy mouse holding a link of gold chains.

After eight seasons showing in London, Karen crossed the Atlantic to debut at New York Fashion Week in 2006, with a collection that mixed some of the signatures she had cultivated — boyish trousers, microfloral prints and voluminous blouses — with acid-bright yellows and pinks.

_{Karen in 2012 for Viva, inspecting her jewellery. Photo / Babiche Martens}

_{Karen in 2012 for Viva, inspecting her jewellery. Photo / Babiche Martens}

Karen’s first major brand diversification — of which there have been many — came with the launch of her fine jewellery, in 2003, which she presented alongside a ready-to-wear collection at New Zealand Fashion Week, one of only two times she’s participated in the event. The line included diamond-encrusted skulls, topaz cocktail rings and charm bracelets with little Runaway girl charms dangling off them. The cartoonish designs were meant to inject fun into fine jewellery, and subvert the idea of fusty heirlooms; the first collection ran alongside a campaign styled by interior designer Katie Lockhart and photographed by Derek, with a giant, holey, piece of cheese and a taxidermy mouse holding a link of gold chains.

After eight seasons showing in London, Karen crossed the Atlantic to debut at New York Fashion Week in 2006, with a collection that mixed some of the signatures she had cultivated — boyish trousers, microfloral prints and voluminous blouses — with acid-bright yellows and pinks.

According to Jane Keltner of Teen Vogue, by the time she arrived in New York, she was “already a darling of the downtown set”.

_{Karen Walker's New York Fashion Week show, February 2009.}

“Karen brought a light-heartedness to New York Fashion Week,” says stylist and former Vogue contributor Kathryn Neale. “It was always something to look forward to, a bright spot on an otherwise quite serious day. The people that went to her show shared that sense of fun. It was never just editors, there were musicians and actors and it was a more eclectic crowd.”

_{Models backstage at New York Fashion Week, 2009.}

Kathryn, who worked under Francisco Costa at Calvin Klein, styled Karen Walker’s shows from 2014-2016. “I loved working on Garden People, which was loosely inspired by an old book Karen had picked up, with photographs of aristocratic gardeners beaming beside their flower beds. Karen had used bold florals and we paired them with sun-faded chore coats. It all came together rather effortlessly.”

_{The 'Victory Garden' collection at New York Fashion Week, 2006.}

It was with her eyewear, however, that Karen Walker seemingly had her biggest success with, both locally and internationally. There was a moment in time when you couldn’t walk down Ponsonby Road without being accosted by a slew of oversized, often brightly-coloured or oddly-shaped Karen Walker frames. It was probably around 2014, when the brand was at its zenith internationally: eyewear sales alone were estimated at NZD$35 million in 2014. Lena Dunham, at the height of her Girls fame, posed wearing a pair on Instagram, and erstwhile blogger Leandra Medine of Man Repeller sat front row of her spring/summer 2015 show, where the sunglasses came free in the goodie bags.

_{Karen's 'Little Aliens' eyewear collection, 2012.}

The eyewear campaigns felt momentous, capturing the spirit of the time: Walker photographed elderly women from Ari Seth Cohen’s popular blog Advanced Style wearing the frames in 2013, as well as Toast, the King Charles Cavalier Spaniel and internet sensation belonging to the comedian known as The Fat Jew, wearing a pair with the tell-tale Karen Walker arrow down the arm in 2015.

_{Artist, author and model Ilona Royce Smithkin in Karen's 2013 eyewear campaign. Photo / Ari Seth Cohen}

“Going to Kenya and doing the collaboration with the United Nations was an eye opener,” says Derek, who photographed a 2014 eyewear campaign on artisans in Kenya, as part of an initiative based around empowering women in Africa. “They had set up a profitable business model that employed local women to make luxury products there … it was one of the most beautiful and enlightening things I’ve seen to this day.”

_{The 2014 eyewear campaign. Photo / Derek Henderson}

Karen Walker's New York Fashion Week show, February 2009.

According to Jane Keltner of Teen Vogue, by the time she arrived in New York, she was “already a darling of the downtown set”.

Models backstage at New York Fashion Week, 2009.

“Karen brought a light-heartedness to New York Fashion Week,” says stylist and former Vogue contributor Kathryn Neale. “It was always something to look forward to, a bright spot on an otherwise quite serious day. The people that went to her show shared that sense of fun. It was never just editors, there were musicians and actors and it was a more eclectic crowd.”

The 'Victory Garden' collection at New York Fashion Week, 2006.

Kathryn, who worked under Francisco Costa at Calvin Klein, styled Karen Walker’s shows from 2014-2016. “I loved working on Garden People, which was loosely inspired by an old book Karen had picked up, with photographs of aristocratic gardeners beaming beside their flower beds. Karen had used bold florals and we paired them with sun-faded chore coats. It all came together rather effortlessly.”

Karen's 'Little Aliens' eyewear collection, 2012.

It was with her eyewear, however, that Karen Walker seemingly had her biggest success with, both locally and internationally. There was a moment in time when you couldn’t walk down Ponsonby Road without being accosted by a slew of oversized, often brightly-coloured or oddly-shaped Karen Walker frames. It was probably around 2014, when the brand was at its zenith internationally: eyewear sales alone were estimated at NZD$35 million in 2014. Lena Dunham, at the height of her Girls fame, posed wearing a pair on Instagram, and erstwhile blogger Leandra Medine of Man Repeller sat front row of her spring/summer 2015 show, where the sunglasses came free in the goodie bags.

Artist, author and model Ilona Royce Smithkin in Karen's 2013 eyewear campaign. Photo / Ari Seth Cohen

The eyewear campaigns felt momentous, capturing the spirit of the time: Walker photographed elderly women from Ari Seth Cohen’s popular blog Advanced Style wearing the frames in 2013, as well as Toast, the King Charles Cavalier Spaniel and internet sensation belonging to the comedian known as The Fat Jew, wearing a pair with the tell-tale Karen Walker arrow down the arm in 2015.

The 2014 eyewear campaign. Photo / Derek Henderson

“Going to Kenya and doing the collaboration with the United Nations was an eye opener,” says Derek, who photographed a 2014 eyewear campaign on artisans in Kenya, as part of an initiative based around empowering women in Africa. “They had set up a profitable business model that employed local women to make luxury products there … it was one of the most beautiful and enlightening things I’ve seen to this day.”

In 2016, after 20 seasons showing at New York Fashion Week, Karen Walker stopped presenting runway collections. “I always loved creating something bigger than the sum of its parts,” says Karen, “and then times changed, technology shifted, and it was no longer needed. As a bit of the business, as a bit of our storytelling, the fashion show, for our brand, became redundant, because we could tell our story in different ways and at different times.”

Is the fashion show still relevant today, I ask? “A lot of the time now, it’s about the audience and about the social capital and the people arriving,” says Karen. “I think runway shows work best now when they’re fucking huge, like Valentino’s show with all the pink gowns. Or it’s some indie kid in the East End doing it on the smell of an oily rag. It’s the stuff that exists in the middle that’s hard.”

Then again, she still sees the value of fashion week as an overall entity. “They do serve a purpose as a beast to that community’s industry, whether it’s an ‘A’ tier like New York or Paris, or ‘B’ C’ or ‘D’ tier,” says Karen. “We don’t show at New Zealand Fashion Week, but we benefit from it, because there are buyers coming into town and people are excited,” Karen adds. “Disney on Ice at Spark Arena does that as well — it gets people out of the house, it gets them excited, it gets them wanting to be engaged in the world. So we benefit from it as a business.

And I think that anybody in the fashion industry anywhere in the world — Copenhagen, wherever — when there’s an event going on, they see a little lift.”

_{Karen for Viva's most fabulous people of 2018. Photo / Rebecca Zephyr Thomas}

_{Karen for Viva's most fabulous people of 2018. Photo / Rebecca Zephyr Thomas}

In 2016, after 20 seasons showing at New York Fashion Week, Karen Walker stopped presenting runway collections. “I always loved creating something bigger than the sum of its parts,” says Karen, “and then times changed, technology shifted, and it was no longer needed. As a bit of the business, as a bit of our storytelling, the fashion show, for our brand, became redundant, because we could tell our story in different ways and at different times.”

Is the fashion show still relevant today, I ask? “A lot of the time now, it’s about the audience and about the social capital and the people arriving,” says Karen. “I think runway shows work best now when they’re fucking huge, like Valentino’s show with all the pink gowns. Or it’s some indie kid in the East End doing it on the smell of an oily rag. It’s the stuff that exists in the middle that’s hard.”

Then again, she still sees the value of fashion week as an overall entity. “They do serve a purpose as a beast to that community’s industry, whether it’s an ‘A’ tier like New York or Paris, or ‘B’ C’ or ‘D’ tier,” says Karen. “We don’t show at New Zealand Fashion Week, but we benefit from it, because there are buyers coming into town and people are excited,” Karen adds. “Disney on Ice at Spark Arena does that as well — it gets people out of the house, it gets them excited, it gets them wanting to be engaged in the world. So we benefit from it as a business.

And I think that anybody in the fashion industry anywhere in the world — Copenhagen, wherever — when there’s an event going on, they see a little lift.”

Nowadays, Karen doesn’t release seasonal, themed collections, at least not in the way she used to. “I always enjoyed taking people on those narrative journeys,” she says of her show inspirations that drew on Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film Taxi Driver to the Northern Soul dance scene of the ’70s. “The way that we work now, we don’t need those overarching narratives as a tool. It doesn’t mean I’m not still interested, but I can absorb them and enjoy them in other ways.”

Her last traditional, seasonal collection, inspired by the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, was released at the end of 2020. The catalyst was, unsurprisingly, the Covid-19 pandemic, which crystallised a malaise for the traditional fashion system that Karen and her brand had felt for years, and accelerated a need to change her business. She no longer produces spring, summer, autumn or winter ready-to-wear, which gets put on sale when the fashion calendar dictates that it should, but products that release into store each month when her customers need to wear them.

Karen also produces fewer product options, including updated versions of some of her ‘classics’ — the essential trench coat, the perfect knitted sweater, a ruched blouse — in different prints and colours. Her role is now more of a retailer — one she has played in the background for a long time: along with Dan Gosling of Stolen Girlfriend’s Club and hair salon owners Stephen and Lucy Marr, she opened The Department Store in Takapuna in 2009, which was for 10 years New Zealand’s answer to retailers such as London’s Selfridges or Paris’s Le Bon Marche, except with a more local, boutique feel.

Karen also expanded and rebranded her Newmarket store in 2011 to Playpark, a space that presented her ready-to-wear, eyewear and fine jewellery alongside brands including Cacharel, Saint James and Hunter. “When we first opened our Newmarket store, we were selling what we were making,” says Karen, “and at some point throughout our journey, we expanded to be able to present to our customers products that other people make. We have really ramped that up over the last 10 years.”

_{The Karen Walker Britomart store.}

_{The Karen Walker Britomart store.}

Nowadays, Karen doesn’t release seasonal, themed collections, at least not in the way she used to. “I always enjoyed taking people on those narrative journeys,” she says of her show inspirations that drew on Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film Taxi Driver to the Northern Soul dance scene of the ’70s. “The way that we work now, we don’t need those overarching narratives as a tool. It doesn’t mean I’m not still interested, but I can absorb them and enjoy them in other ways.”

Her last traditional, seasonal collection, inspired by the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, was released at the end of 2020. The catalyst was, unsurprisingly, the Covid-19 pandemic, which crystallised a malaise for the traditional fashion system that Karen and her brand had felt for years, and accelerated a need to change her business. She no longer produces spring, summer, autumn or winter ready-to-wear, which gets put on sale when the fashion calendar dictates that it should, but products that release into store each month when her customers need to wear them.

Karen also produces fewer product options, including updated versions of some of her ‘classics’ — the essential trench coat, the perfect knitted sweater, a ruched blouse — in different prints and colours. Her role is now more of a retailer — one she has played in the background for a long time: along with Dan Gosling of Stolen Girlfriend’s Club and hair salon owners Stephen and Lucy Marr, she opened The Department Store in Takapuna in 2009, which was for 10 years New Zealand’s answer to retailers such as London’s Selfridges or Paris’s Le Bon Marche, except with a more local, boutique feel.

Karen also expanded and rebranded her Newmarket store in 2011 to Playpark, a space that presented her ready-to-wear, eyewear and fine jewellery alongside brands including Cacharel, Saint James and Hunter. “When we first opened our Newmarket store, we were selling what we were making,” says Karen, “and at some point throughout our journey, we expanded to be able to present to our customers products that other people make. We have really ramped that up over the last 10 years.”

Today, Karen says more than half of what she sells are products that the brand develops, and the rest is made up of brands that don’t have her name on it. The list is extensive: she sells Birkenstock, New Balance, Adidas, Levi’s, Puma, Converse, Carhartt WIP and Dr. Martens, to name a few, alongside collaborative projects such as mugs by Acme and vases by glass studio Lukeke.

“I just want to be able to serve my community,” says Karen, “to be able to be nimble and present to them what it is they need. I get a good sense of who our customers are, what their lifestyle is, and a lot of the time that’s walking the dog and going for a coffee. Let’s get real — we’re not a red carpet brand, and we’re not going to be making every single thing that makes our customers’ lives better.”

Coupled with Karen’s change in business tactics is a marked shift in her public persona. Where she once presented as a stern, Miranda Priestly-type character who dressed in sharp suits and bristled with her New Zealand fashion comrades, she now proffers a — dare I say it — more relatable version of Karen Walker: one who does product try-ons in her shops, makes videos baking date scones or swears in blooper reels on the brand’s Instagram page.

Is the trope of the fashion designer as a haughty, untouchable figure no longer relevant?

“There has traditionally been that kind of Coco Chanel character, up on a pedestal, who dictates what’s in and what’s out. But for me, it’s the opposite today. I think the customers are on the pedestal and our job as creators and retailers and marketers is to serve that community. Now, you might get a little bit more of me on social media, chit-chatting every now and then, but the power is always in the customer’s hands.”

Chit-chatty and relatable is today’s Karen Walker. As we sit on her deck in Ponsonby, snacking and drinking tea, the haughtiness of New York Fashion Week feels like a distant memory. Despite her change in tact, Karen has established a strong legacy, and continues to build on it.

“Karen Walker has been so present and solid for such a long time now, it’s almost a heritage brand,” adds Kathryn. “What makes her so successful is she’s never been afraid to evolve. Karen may have been from a small country but she clearly never thought small when it came to her business. That’s really worked for her in the long run.”

How does she see the brand existing in the future?

“Well, I’m not going to be here forever,” says Karen. “So, it’s either [have someone take over the brand] or take a bow and leave the stage. But I’m too Calvinist to be excited about that. I’d rather think that the momentum it’s got continues. That’s really the option that excites me the most at this point.”

_{Photos / Babiche Martens}