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.
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