A bunch of outlets are reporting that the duo of Maxwell Osborne and Dao-Yi Chow will be the new creative directors of DKNY. WWD published a while back that rumors were swirling about the brand appointing a new creative director, but, at that point, Public School said it wasn't interested in the gig. This morning, though, WWD confirmed that the two would be joining the iconic New York clothing brand.
The duo will debut their first collection for DKNY with womenswear at New York Fashion Week in September and begin focusing on menswear afterward. The timing to get a menswear collection ready by New York Fashion Week: Men's in July isn't exactly tenable considering they're designing for Public School right now, so the wait until February 2016 is understandable. The brand's namesake, Donna Karan herself, will act as an adviser for the two and continue to be the creative director for the mainline Donna Karan Collection. It looks like DKNY's parent company LVMH is looking to put a big push behind the brand and expand further around the world as more than half of the brand's business is already done outside of the U.S. And what better way than to make the darlings of the fashion world its new creative directors?
We might just have a Céline type situation on our hands, in which a LVMH-owned brand with an already vaunted history acquires the creative brain trust (i.e. Phoebe Philo) it needs to update its image and bring it firmly into the hearts and minds of today's fashion consumers. Time will tell.
