Donna Karan introduced DKNY in 1989, a time when every designer had just launched, or was planning to launch, a bridge line. Anne Klein with Anne Klein II was typical of this retail strategy. Anne Klein II expressed the same aesthetic, silhouette, colors, and looks of the designer line, but produced in affordable fabrics. DKNY did not follow this model.

Donna Karan designed her eponymous line on the belief that the aspirations of the modern working woman, starting with herself could be represented by the lifestyle supported by the most exciting city in the world, New York City.

The Donna Karan line consisted of clothes suitable for the female executive, appropriate for the corner office, the Power Lunch, and even the Black Tie affair. This aesthetic reflected the most telling aspects of New York City — chic, confident, flattering and sophisticated.

Essentially, Ms. Karan designed clothing for herself. Peter Arnell of Arnell Group worked closely with Karan on the branding of Donna Karan, and over the years, through his discussions with her, he noticed that she often remarked upon having nothing to wear on the weekend.

What was missing was clothing for the off duty, playful, casual side of her life. Neither her cocktail dress nor Power Suit was appropriate for playing with her daughter in Central Park, strolling the sidewalks of Soho with her husband, or combing the flea markets on 6th Avenue with her friends.

During the week she was formal, powerful and high end, dining on caviar. On the weekend, she was still stylish, but in a more accessible and casual way. She was laid back and spontaneous, maybe stopping to grab a slice (of pizza). This side of Donna Karan needed to be dressed.

When Karan presented Arnell with the challenge of creating a second line, Arnell hit upon the idea of addressing the casual side of the Donna Karan customer. This strategy sought to widen the customer base, not by necessarily increasing the number of customers, but by increasing the amount of time the existing customers would spend in her clothing. This line would enable the Donna Karan customer to wear the clothes seven days a week instead of only five, covering her full 24/7 clock.

The inspiration behind Donna Karan’s designer line was the successful, professional woman thriving in New York City. The inspiration behind Donna Karan’s second line was this woman at ease in New York City. So, to gain real insight into the brands identity, Arnell did what everyone in New York City does: he walked.

Arnell walked uptown and downtown, east side and west side, from Wall Street to Harlem, observing The city that was loved by Karan, by himself, and by millions around the globe. The hum of the city, the beats and rhythms of life on its streets, the accelerating and staggered lines of its architecture and skyline, the entire city would be embedded in the brand. Along the way Arnell re-discovered that New York was a city of iconic institutions, from the façade of the Met to the local precinct house, from the New York Stock Exchange to the firehouse. The strong images of institutions such as NYPD and FDNY inspired the creation of the city’s newest icon. Donna Karan New York gave birth to DKNY. New York City became the palette of the brand. Its images and symbols became the images and symbols of DKNY. Subway tokens were re-imagined as rivets on jeans, manhole covers as buttons. Sidewalk grates inspired texture on packaging. DKNY WALK, a play on street signals, decorated shoebox covers. Photographs of the city were also layered into the logo, creating a photomontage of such icons as the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Empire State Building.

In department stores, Arnell created in-store boutiques, which further illustrated the brand. This was an entirely new shopping experience. Materials and images were taken from the cityscape; lighting fixtures looked like street lamps. A customer shopping in the DKNY boutique found herself immersed in New York City. The actual city of New York itself soon became a backdrop for DKNY.

In mark the brand’s launch in the most dramatic way, Arnell Group hired a skywriter to put DKNY over the city. As it happened, the international press core was in the city to cover the President’s visit to the United Nations that day. No one knew what DKNY was, and the subsequent photos and speculation on its meaning — was it a protest or a greeting or a political message of some sort — caused a media frenzy. Other novel ways to promote the brand included a freeway sign over the exit from the Midtown tunnel into Manhattan reading Uptown to the right, Downtown to the left, and DKNY straight ahead. Billboards of the DKNY photomontage appeared all over the city. The most notable billboard stands at Houston and Broadway, the gateway to Soho. At first, because the location was on a landmarked building, it was not available for advertisement. To acquire the site.

Arnell collaborated with art historians and fine art restorers to create a special paint that was consistent with the surface of the building. It would reflect the building’s age and condition, and make the painting look as if it had always belonged there. Through these actions, Arnell convinced city officials to allow the mural to be put up in this historic spot.

Today, the Soho mural that Arnell Group put up seventeen years ago has become an authentic backdrop and symbol of the City, and in this way fulfills the original promise of the DKNY brand becoming a genuine New York City icon.

Biography
Peter Arnell (Arnell Group)
Peter Arnell is Founder, Chairman, CEO and Chief Creative Officer of Arnell Group, founded 1979, a wholly owned subsidiary of Omnicom. Arnell Group is a comprehensive branding and communications consultancy incorporating a unique series of professional skill sets and disciplines in the areas of strategy, architecture, engineering, product design, corporate identity, research, channel development and enterprise architecture planning. Mr. Arnell was born in Brooklyn in 1959 of English and Russian heritage. An architect and designer by training who studied at Columbia and Princeton Universities respectively, Mr. Arnell has authored 19 books including important academic monographs on such architects as Frank Gehry, Aldo Rossi and James Stirling, for publishers including Rizzoli, Knopf and Harpers & Row.