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As one of a group of fashion designers previously sponsored by Tradenz to attend international fashion shows, Karen Walker, right, is now set to be the first New Zealander to have a solo show in New York. She talks to Jenny Ryan
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SINCE London Fashion Week, Karen Walker has been trying to catch her breath. The life of a fashion designer is busy--there are collections for the northern hemisphere winter and the southern hemisphere summer to prepare as well as an upcoming solo show in New York.
Working for double hemispheres isn't easy, she says. "It's a bit of a pain and it can be quite confusing and quite draining, but that's just part of it. If you want to stay living in New Zealand or Aus-tralasia and you want to be working on the global stage, you have to do both."
And Walker doesn't want to migrate, so she has accepted the frantic pace.
There's no time for hobbies: "Maybe if we're lucky we get to go to a movie or have some friends around or take the dog for a walk, that's about it."
The other half of the "we" is husband Mikhail Gherman who works fulltime for advertising agency Mojo as well as finding time to be her creative director and her day-to-day inspiration, she says.
Things are going well for the 30-year-old Auckland designer, some of which is thanks to Madonna. Since the singer wore a pair of Walker's trousers to the MTV music awards in 1998, they've been famous worldwide, she says.
"Before we were known for our pants here, but after that, every time there's been an article or a mention of us in Vogue or Elle or anything, they mention Madonna and the killer pants. But that's good, I'm happy with that--(there are) worse things to be known for than having the greatest pants in the world."
Walker says they don't even hear about 90 per cent of the famous people who buy her clothes, though she knows that Tina Turner, Garbage's Shirley Manson and Rene Russo are among them--she has a copy of a cheque from Russo to prove it.
"Those Hollywood stars sign cheques themselves because a lot of the time people don't bank...