Donna Karan's creative process can be summarized as follows: 1) Karan is inspired by the constant state of chaos in her life that drives her to create new fashion designs. 2) Her designs emerge through a complex dynamical system where inspiration flows into her work like an energy flux undergoing a phase transition, becoming organized by a "strange attractor" into new patterns. 3) Karan sees fashion as a canvas for empowering women, drawing from both Eastern and Western influences in an ongoing process of exploration and renewal.

1. Order Out of Chaos
The Designs of Donna Karan
by
Vietanh Nguyen

2. Contents
Introduction
The Signature Pieces
The Creative Process
The Creative Process as a
Dynamical System
Conclusion
References

3. Introduction
“I live in a constant state of chaos; it’s what drives me to create.”
-- Donna Karan

4. Introduction
“Because Donna Karan brings some Zen into the lives of crazed
working women.”
-- Vanity Fair on citing Donna Karan as a Fashion Week Designer

5. The
Signature Pieces
Draped
Column
Dress

6. The
Signature Pieces
Bare
Shoulder
Dress

7. The
Signature Pieces
Belt

8. The
Signature Pieces
Corset

9. The
Signature Pieces
V-Neck
Sheer
Bodysuit

10. The
Signature Pieces
Hosiery

11. The Creative Process as Seen by Karan
“Each season I start where I began – with the body.”
“How the clothes relate to the body, how they move and feel, is
what’s important to me.”

12. The Creative Process as Seen by Karan
“I don’t see just one woman when I design.
It’s always a universe of women.
Strong, passionate women,
women who are true to themselves and their visions.
I see clothes as a canvas to their individuality.
The woman should always be the first thing you see, not her
clothes.”

13. The Creative Process as Seen by Karan
“… I have found that the intersection of East and West is a realm
of endless creativity, a place of emotional and aesthetic energy I
return to again and again, each time finding something new to
explore.”

14. The Creative Process as Seen by Karan
“I inhale all the beautiful inspiration I can, and then exhale it into a
collection.”
-- Donna Karan

15. The Creative Process
as a Dynamical System
The creative process can be modeled as a dynamic open system
operating in the chaos of an energy flow and going through a
phase transition. At the phase transition, the energy flux through
the system becomes organized by what is called a strange
attractor into emerging new ordered patterns.

16. In Dialogue
with the Universe
First there is an open system
operating in an energy or
information flux - there is an
exchange of entropy between
the outside and the inside.

17. As a
Bioenergetics Process
The resulting coupling is similar
to that of a bioenergetics
process, where the “foodstuffs”
represent the inspiration and the
assembled “ATP” acts as an
intermediary between the
provision and the use of
inspiration.

18. A Cascade of Catalytic Steps
Upon encountering with “hormones”, the “ATP” may start off a
cascade of catalytic steps.

19. Phase Transition
The cascade may lead to instabilities through repeated self-
amplifying feedback. At such a point of instability, or a bifurcation
point, the system goes through a phase transition. At the phase
transition, ordered patterns may emerge spontaneously through a
strange attractor.

20. Strange Attractor
“The form which embodies that which appeared in consciousness
– that is to be held within consciousness.”
-- Upanishads

21. Strange Attractor
What kind of orbit could be
drawn in a bounded space so
that it would never repeat itself
and never cross itself?
The energy flow that produced
chaos begins to become
organized by the strange
attractor into emerging new
patterns.

22. Strange Attractor
“Curving back upon my own nature, I create again and again.”
-- Bhagavad-Gita

23. Poincaré Returns
Exposing an Attractor’s Structure
To see the structure within, a
slice can be taken through an
attractor, a so-called Poincaré
section or Poincaré return
map.
The map reduces a three-
dimensional flow to two
dimensions without loss of
meaningful information.

24. Tangle within a Poincaré Section
Slices of an attractor show tangle within each slice.

25. What Tangle Means
Tangle within a Poincaré section implies variations on a theme.

26. Variations on a Theme
Three variations on a theme in red.

27. Variations on a Theme
Silhouette
Three variations on the theme of body-sculpted silhouette.

28. Fugue in Fashion Design
Like J.S. Bach experimenting with fugues in classical music,
Donna Karan likes to experiment with variations on a theme in
fashion design.

29. Conclusion
“Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the
artist does the better.”
-- André Gide

30. References
Ingrid Sischy, The Journey of a Woman: 20 Years of Donna Karan,
Assouline, 2004
Christian de Duve, Singularities: Landmarks on the Pathways of
Life, Cambridge University Press, 2005
Christian de Duve, A Guided Tour of the Living Cell, Scientific
American Books, 1984

31. References
Ralph Abraham and Christopher Shaw, Dynamics: The Geometry
of Behavior, Addison-Wesley, 1992
Ivar Ekeland, Mathematics and the Unexpected, The University of
Chicago Press, 1988
James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science, Viking, 1987
Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Order Out of Chaos,
Shambala, 1984
Julien Sprott, Strange Attractors: Creating Patterns in Chaos, M&T
Books, 1993