HUMAN RESOURCES: DKNY Is Getting A Public School Degree

In a surprising and intriguing bit of personnel change, Dao-Yi Chao and Maxwell Osborne (pictured at right) who have reaped acclaim as the designers of the Public School label have just been named creative directors of the DKNY brand. There have been rumors the longtime DKNY creative director Jane Chung would be replaced, and WWD confirms that she will be transitioned out of the position while Chao and Osborne will show their first DKNY collection in September for women. Their menswear will debut the next season for Fall 2016.
The designers have been recipients of the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund and are currently nominated for the CFDA Award for Menswear and the Swarovski Award for Womenswear. They released a statement, “We both grew up in New York and DKNY has always been part of the landscape of this city in our formative years as designers and as New Yorkers. It is one of the brands that helped change the game for us and for American fashion. It evokes everything our city was always about — energy, disruption, new thinking and transcending all boundaries. We are extremely proud and excited to be joining the company and to contribute to the next chapter of DKNY, one of the most iconic American brands created by Donna Karan, a true inspiration.”

As for the DKNY brand, WWD confirms that parent company LVMH is actively investing in the label to reinvigorate it and to that end have made another lower profile but no less interesting hire in Hector Muelas as the newly created post of chief image officer at Donna Karan International. Mules was formerly creative director of worldwide marketing communications of Apple Inc. and represents something for a turnabout as Apple has been raiding top fashion companies in recent years for retail and marketing executives.
Things are expected to remain as they are, personnel-wise, at the flagship Donna Karan New York label where the designer herself will remain the creative director. Karan has been said to support the design change at DKNY and the efforts to restore it to a more prominent profile in the contemporary world. One thing we can definitely predict is that the DKNY show will be a much hotter ticket than it has been in years. What happens after that is up to Chao and Osborne.

Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne Tapped as DKNY Creative Directors (WWD)