Donna Karan Pushed The Brand To Its Peak But Failed.

In recent years, Ms. Karan has become a little eccentric, or more artistic, and more conceptualized on the stage after her trip to India and Bali Island. Her needs for self actualization and tranquillity remain something that her customers can understand.

The more sensible way is, really, don't try to replace her - this will only drive people crazy - and redesign the brand she built in another way.

As she probably knew it, consciously or unconsciously.

After all, she has never trained successors.

This may be an overly benign explanation for this situation, an unexpected benefit of a peaceful corporate strategy.

But this is worth saying publicly, because it confirms what a designer can bring to the fashion house, and some people are deeply rooted in their brand.

We are in a time when designer support for brands is gradually decreasing, but if the designer is a brand, his or her contribution is undeniable.

The first thing I want to think about is that this is not the way she wants to end.

And the second thing I think of is: in fact, maybe this is the case.

It is shocking and unexpected that Donna Karan is leaving the company that she founded in 1984 and is the chief designer.

In 2001, LVHM Group acquired her brand, and her relationship with LVHM group was not very harmonious.

Last year, she was closed at the flagship store on Madison Avenue; LVHM group appointed a new designer to her sub line brand, and her closest employee left the company.

In May, on her holiday series, I asked her if she would remain in office. She smiled and laughed.

But what is really surprising is the current main line.

In the "suspended state", and no replacement of her emergency plan, nor headhunting company busy.

In September this year, New York fashion week will not be Donna Karan's fashion show.

DKI (Donna Karan International) will continue to operate, so will DKNY.

But the names behind these acronyms will disappear at least from now on.

This is the first designer in my memory to leave the company, whether under his or her own driving force or under external pressure, or in both situations - and the company owner doesn't even pretend to look for a replacement.

Chris Cristobal Balenciaga asked for his name to disappear after his death, but his successor ignored it.

Now, the brand under his name is a member of Kai Yun group and thrives on Paris fashion Sunday, though it may not be able to recognize its founder.

After losing the visionary of its namesake, some fashion houses still operate routinely.

For example, Dior, Givenchy, Jil Sander, Oscar de la Renta, Calvin Klein are all like this.

In fact, LVHM group created it as an art by managing fashion houses without founders.

We may regard the elimination mainline as a slap in the face of Ms. Karan, which can be regarded as a realistic politics or an acknowledgment in the fashion world, in which case no one can really become the second Karan.

Compared with the vast majority of designers, she is more indispensable to the company she founded and everything she advocates.

Her DNA is its DNA, and her customers feel a personal connection with her as a designer, far beyond their feelings about other brands.

To them, she is a friend. She understands them (even if LVHM doesn't understand her): their dreams and ambitions, their work life problems, and their problems with their thighs.

In 1985, she started her own series with "simple seven pieces", and changed the wardrobe of female executives of enterprises (in 1980s, between Karan and elastic fabrics).

Wearing a similar Giorgio Armani to men's clothing.

From "simple seven" to the first advertising campaign of the first woman president, she gave the solution, because they are her own solution: the clothes she wears as mothers, wives, tycoons, philanthropists, widows, grandmothers and girlfriends.

In 1993, Hilllary Clinton (Hillary Rodham Clinton) -- a first lady who prepared to separate herself from Barbara Bush (Barbara Bush) and Nancy Regan (Nancy Reagan) and take on a more active political role -- wore a Donna Karan at the White House dinner.

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Candice Bergen (Candice Bergen), the female role in television, Murphy Brown (Murphy Brown) is also often found wearing Donna Karan.

I think that's why so many responses to Karan's news are like obituary.

But Donna is not dead. (she is 66 years old, a staunch yoghurt and activist), and I believe she will show her in a completely new way.

What has disappeared is the idea of the women who dress her up, from Susan Salrandon (Susan Sarandon) to Katie Helms (Katie Holmes).

This is the content of elegy, and all the tweets are sighing for the end of this era.

But perhaps this is the beginning of another era, not only for Ms. Karan, but also for fashion itself.

Yes, this is indeed a loss, but it is also possible to draw lessons from this confusion.

We just need to apply it.