She's collaborated on creating shoes, make-up and her own line of paint, and that's not even touching on Karen Walker's ready-to-wear, 'Hi There' diffusion line, eyewear and jewellery ranges. Now the New Zealand native with the New York following has bulked up her resume a little more by turning her hand to costume creation.
Walker's dance costumes will hit the stage this month as part of the Royal New Zealand Ballet's Stravinsky Selection, a three-ballet season that celebrates the work of twentieth century composer Igor Stravinsky. Her designs will take centre stage in the first ballet in the triple bill, called 'Satisfied With Great Success'.
When it comes to the world of dance, Walker can't tell you the difference between a plié or a pas de deux, has never taken a ballet class and can't name a favourite ballet because she doesn't have one. In fact it's her husband Mikhail who has a history with the art form.
“He thinks he's seen Swan Lake a dozen times,” Walker says. But as for herself? “I was never a girl who wanted to be a ballerina... In the very early stages of my career I worked with a film production company designing costumes for television commercials but I've never done anything with dance.”
Rather than discourage her, the chance to “step into the unknown” and work on dance costume design for the first time was among the factors that lured Walker into the RNZB collaboration.
“One of the reasons we were interested in doing this project is that Stravinsky is such a bridge between contrasts – high and low, modern and traditional, and combining contrasts is as the core of our handwriting,” Walker adds.
Also geared in Walker's favour was ballet choreographer Cameron McMillan's creative vision.
“When we spoke to Cameron he was clear he didn't want 'costuming',” she says. “He said he'd seen our work and he liked our contemporary, casual approach to dressing and he thought that it would work well with Stravinsky.”
Both she and McMillan wanted to create costumes from a “real clothes point of view”.
“What we loved about the [Sergei] Diaghilev, Ballet Russes tradition, which Stravinsky was a central part of, was an approach that casualised ballet by bringing real clothes into it,” Walker says.
While there are certain criteria that must be met in ballet costume design, including maintaining visibility of a dancer's body and devising clothes that can withstand heat and sweat, Walker says conceiving outfits for the RNZB's finest was no different to regular ready-to-wear design.
“When you're designing fashion you still have to think about the physicality of the work,” she explains.
There is also an overlap between the source of inspiration for both the ready-to-wear and costume designs, with Walker mining the portfolio of work by deceased Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp for creative stimulation.
“When we started working on this we were looking at Sophie Taeuber-Arp's Dada-ist marionettes. We'd been looking at these for a few seasons as we liked the colour blocking and the fabric contrasting, the throwing together of high and low.
“We took parka nylon but cut it into an almost couture style with multiple circular skirts and a razor-cut, raw hemline to create something with a high-end execution but in a utility fabric.
“The utility fabric also gave us the intense colours which we contrasted with rehearsal type fabrics like grey marle t-shirting. This idea for the starting point is perfectly expressed in our parka nylon t-shirting dress (pictured).”
As Walker and her team continued to devise and design the ballet dresses, they used Skype to stay in touch with McMillan. The choreographer, fashion designer and dancers all convened for the first time in April for rehearsals and fit tests.
When asked about the most difficult part of the costume collaboration process, Walker has one word: “nothing”. “So far no surprises. Our discussions with Cameron have allowed us to pre-empt most issues.”
When the lights go up on 'Satisfied with great success', it will represent the end of eight months’ work for Walker. The highlight of the whole process? “Seeing the first prototype on a dancer in movement – amazing. I think our customers will be pleased to see another side to what we do.”