Karen Walker: Back Yard High Casual

6 page Observer spread: Walker uses her distance to advantage, preferring the hilltops of Auckland to the glamour and pace of Europe. “Karen Walker’s lived-in fabrics and homely knits evoke her idyllic New Zealand childhood.” Walker: “we never want the collections to look like they’ve come from fashion … but from somewhere altogether more innocent.” A quintessentially NZ design ethic of comfort over glitz, a style she describes as “high casual.” The Walker brand of dressing down is popular – a trend attributed to a post-Sept 11 nesting instinct. Stocked in Barney’s (NYC, LA), Colette in Paris, London, Hong Kong, Australia, and Japan. Walker sits comfortably on the edge: “Auckland is not the traditional centre of the fashion world, but it seems to be working fine so far.”