What Karen Walker Likes To Wear
Earlier this year, New Zealand designer Karen Walker stopped over in Melbourne to visit a pop-up store called Discover New, which showcased brands from her homeland. Although she had previously written about her brand, Rachelle Unreich says she had never set eyes on her before – a tall, silver-haired woman who commanded the room.
Wearing a navy shirt, black pants and a slash of red lipstick, Karen Walker brought to my mind Scottish singer Annie Lennox. Looking at her, I was reminded of that one person in high school who stood out with their je ne sais quoi style; the one who found unlikely items in their wardrobe – things that weren’t trendy or mass produced – that made them look runway-ready, but on anyone else would look as if they were off to pull weeds in the garden.
With the crowd buzzing around us, I put my journalist’s hat on and sit down with Karen to ask about her personal style.
Brand Karen Walker is all about simplicity; feminine but not fussy, with any flounces balanced by non-competing colours. Her range includes eyewear, homewares, fragrances, jewellery and bridal gowns (which aren’t just for the young) and has been going strong since the 1980s.
Now, at the age of 51, the label she started in her teens continues to flourish. When I was living in New York in the ’90s, few Australasian designers had made it big there, but Karen Walker’s eponymous label was available in the most coveted department store of all: Barneys. She’s designed clothes worn by Natalie Portman, Jennifer Lopez and Kate Winslet, and she’s most recently developed a line of paint colours.
Throughout our conversation, I couldn’t help but fangirl to the extreme. I was surprised, however, to learn about her aesthetic when it comes to her own wardrobe.
“I’m a big fan of the uniform,” she told me. “I love people who dress in a uniform, with just a slight finessing around the edges, a little bit of fairy dust, but sticking with the same look.”
Her closet, she adds, is full of staples. If you were to fossick in her wardrobe, “You’ll always find white Stan Smiths, a pair of 501s, black Chelsea boots, too much grey cashmere, a Saint James Breton striped T-shirt, a blazer, a really good trench coat and maybe a silk scarf. That’s kind of it.”
““I’m a big fan of the uniform … a slight finessing around the edges, a little bit of fairy dust, but sticking with the same look.””
She explains that this tendency runs in the family. “I remember being at my grandmother’s house when I was very little, and my mother opening her closet and saying, ‘How many twinsets does one woman need?’ My grandmother wasn’t ostentatious in any way – she was very Calvinist – but she had one closet full of white cotton twinsets and another full of grey-tweed pleated skirts, and that worked for her.
“I’ve always been a fan of that – not having to think too much, but just having a bit of magic around the edges to keep it a little bit interesting.”
For Karen, ageing doesn’t mean wearing boring clothes. “It doesn’t need to be bland. The fashion business goes hand-in-hand with ‘look at me, here I am’, but the essence of it is feeling good about yourself, and presenting yourself in a certain way. It’s about self-expression – reinvention in some way, but telling your own story. Reinventing yourself.”
Given that her persona and presence is so strong, I want to know whether there was a turning point in her life – something that really helped form the woman she would become?
“There’s a lot about me that’s intrinsic to me, and there are other elements of me that have developed over time – through working consciously on it, or by weathering the hard knocks or through learnt lessons. But I think at my core, my attitude has always been how it is now.
“If you were to wrap that up in a concise message, it’s about seeking adventure and confidence and curiosity and moxie. In the graphic for our brand, there’s an arrow, and that’s the same idea: it’s moving forward, unwavering. That’s just a reflection of me, the way I work through life. It’s that attitude of, ‘What’s next? Let’s do it!’”
