What were Thom Browne, Michael Kors, Emily Bode, and a crew of other New York fashion stars doing on the Intrepid last week? At the request of the force of nature that is their fellow designer Donna Karan, all of them have created one-of-a-kind pieces made from military deadstock for a June 5th auction, the proceeds of which will go to Veteran Services USA. Karan gathered them on the historic ship’s foredeck for a photoshoot to promote the event.
Style for Strength, as the sale has been dubbed, is the brainchild of Karan and her friend Cheri Kaufman, the co-founder of both Kaufman Astoria Studios and Veteran Services USA. The auction was conceived to raise funds specifically to support the treatment of post traumatic stress (PTS) in service men and women via a new drug-free protocol, Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories (RTM).
“The trauma that veterans have been through really struck a chord with me,” says Karan. “But there is not one person that isn’t dealing with mental health. This program has a 90% success rate, so we are here to bring awareness to it. This is everything I believe in and the ethos of Urban Zen: how to find the calm in the chaos.”
Karan is no stranger to organizing. In 1990, after designers Roy Halston Frowick, Patrick Kelly, Willi Smith, and Perry Ellis, among others, had succumbed to AIDS, she was integral in the founding of Seventh on Sale, a four-day shopping extravaganza that raised $4 million for the New York City AIDS Fund that year and went on to become an annual event. And Urban Zen, the brand she founded in 2007, has purpose written into its business plan, funding as it does the Urban Zen Foundation’s philanthropic healthcare initiatives.
Kaufman saw the synergies between Karan’s efforts at Urban Zen and the mission of Veteran Services. “We both share a spirit of compassion in our business and philanthropic efforts,” she says. “It’s been a great experience to see the vision of all these quintessential American designers come to life for this event.” Tommy Hilfiger, Kenneth Cole, Peter Dundas, Collina Strada’s Hillary Taymour, Rio Uribe, Jonathan Cohen, and Bonnie Young are among the other designer contributors. “We want a better world,” Kaufman continues, “and we are creating it.”
Karan’s Style for Strength design features an officer’s jacket with the midriff sliced away and a reconstructed skirt crosshatched with raw stitches. Michael Kors and Thom Browne worked in their own vernaculars, the former cutting a swaggering floor-length trench from a collage of deadstock army fatigues—“working on this project has been both creatively and emotionally fulfilling for me, as a designer and a proud American,” Kors says—and the latter patch-working a tailored top coat and skirt suit from precisely square-cut scraps. “The awareness Donna is bringing to Veteran Services USA is so important,” Browne comments. “We have to continue finding ways to support and celebrate our veterans and to celebrate sustainability.”
But using vintage military gear goes beyond the current vogue for upcycling. “The repurposed and redesigned styles exemplify the spirit of the RTM therapy, which is a transformation and elevation of a former experience to something new,” says Urban Zen’s CEO Helen Aboah. “Raising awareness surrounding any mental health challenge elevates the conversation for all forms of mental health.”
Will Style for Strength become a yearly event, like Seventh on Sale did three decades ago? Karan seems up for the challenge, whether that means going annual or launching more regular sales. “I do want to get younger people involved,” she says. “I do want to get Parsons School of Design and FIT, all the schools. I always say, ‘you have to find the care in health care, it’s not about dressing people, it’s addressing.’ This is just the beginning of what we can do.”
All 19 of the looks will be online at 9 am EST today, May 31, and available for bidding. Visit http://www.styleforstrength.com/.
