Karen Walker's guide to brand building.

The business of image-making.

When you’re in the business of fashion you’re in the business of image-making. Everything you create or do is intrinsically connected to the way you express and market yourself.

People sometimes go: “oh fashion, it’s all marketing”. Well, yeah. It kind of is all marketing. And even when brands
say they don’t care about marketing, well guess what? That’s marketing too. All the best fashion designers are in the business of marketing.

However, you still have to have a great product to market. Just as great product deserves great marketing, great marketing is no band-aid for crappy product.

Challenge.

Every time we take on a new project, it’s done from the point of view of challenging what’s already there. There’s no point in doing a version of something that already exists.

The designer’s job is to challenge and react to what already exists.

We only take on a project if it will allow us to express a different point of view to what’s there already.

We only take on a new project if there’s something new to be said.

And we always bring that point of view down to its most potent and fundamental level so that the product, as well as the message, can be succinct and tight.

Karen Walker paint.

When we partnered with Resene to create a Karen Walker line of paint colours, it wasn’t just because we thought it would be a great brand extension.

It was because we had a point of view on it – that point of view was that we wanted to react to the standard paint charts
that had 1000 colours to select from. Our paint edits always have less than 50 colours. We’re now in our 13th year in this category.

Karen Walker jewellery.

When we launched fine jewellery it was a reaction to the old-fashioned idea of jewellery being for special occasions.

Our idea was about creating new occasions for women to mark for themselves and to create fine jewellery that lived in the everyday.

Most of all, we wanted to make precious jewellery fun.

Karen Walker eyewear.

When we started our partnership with to create our eyewear line, it wasn’t just because it would be a great extension to the Karen Walker brand.

At the core was an idea about an approach to this product that we believed was missing in the market.

We believed that what was missing in eyewear was the fun element.

We set out to create a product that was bolder, brighter, chunkier, flatter, more exaggerated, more exuberant, more cartoony, more toy-like, more playful, and, most importantly, more optimistic than what was there already.

When you create a product that has this strong a message it requires a marketing idea around it that is just as challenging and strong.

The way in which we express the product has to be as intrinsically connected to the brand’s vision as the product itself.

This is an extract from a speech Karen Walker delivered at a luxury conference in Sydney.