Donna Karan, who is today among those most known in the United States fashion industry, is most famous for her invention of "the body", considered as being one of the most sensible clothing items to emerge from the Eighties.

Donna Faske was born in 1948 in Forest Hills, NY, in 1948. Her mother was a model mother and her father owned a haberdashery. From a very early age, Donna was infatuated with the idea of fashion. She attended Parsons School of Design for two years and then started work with Anne Klein where she produced sportswear that was moderately priced. By the year 1971, she had become an associate designer. When Anne Klein died in 1974, she became the co-designer along with Louis Dell'Olio. A decade later, she and her husband Steven Weiss began Donna Karan New York, which is famous for its DKNY label.

When it began in 1985, the first collection that she introduced was not particularly sweeping in change, but it did present an entirely new system for dressing that differed from the power suit approach that was being used in the Eighties. By bringing together facets of tailoring combined with sportswear to make sure that the clothes were both user -friendly while being luxurious, she produced a line of fashions that were very flattering. While her clothes do not usually grab headlines they are typically easy to wear providing luxurious blends of cashmeres along with Lycras within the context of a chic array of colors that are predominantly blues and blacks. The fashions of Karan are also generally regarded as being those that are most innovative of the bridge line. In order to dress daughter Gaby, in 1988 Donna Karan introduced the less expensive DKNY label. Under this label today the company also produces jeans, menswear, hosiery, accessories, cosmetics and fragrance.

In April 2001, Karan announced that she had sold her company, Donna Karan International, to French luxury conglomerate LVMH for almost $250 million in cash. LVMH had previously acquired Karan's license-holding company, Gabrielle Studio, bringing the total value of the sale to $643 million. Following the news, LVMH decided to relocate this most American of American companies to Italy.