Donna Karan to Be Honored at LongHouse Reserve Summer Benefit

In recognition of her work with the Urban Zen Foundation, East Hampton’s resident design icon Donna Karan will be honored with LongHouse Reserve’s Arts Leadership Award at the East Hampton reserve and sculpture garden’s annual Summer Benefit on Saturday, July 20. Event attendees will enjoy a cocktail hour beginning at 6 p.m. followed by dinner and a performance by avant-garde multimedia artist, composer and performer Laurie Anderson, also of East Hampton.

LongHouse Reserve has long stood for living in balance with art, nature and open space. This harmony between nature and man’s use of space is not unlike the holistic balance of body, mind and environment advocated for by Karan’s Urban Zen Foundation.

Karan started the Urban Zen Foundation in 2007 as a means of impacting people’s lives beyond the design and sale of physical garments. She and her foundation have taken a particular interest in improving healthcare and education in Haiti while helping to preserve indigenous culture. Holistic patient care has become a pillar of the healthcare initiative at Urban Zen, through the Urban Zen Integrative Therapy program (UZIT) which trains members of the healthcare and yoga communities to treat the patient rather than the disease, with particular focus on managing symptoms of pain, anxiety, nausea, insomnia, constipation (PANIC) and exhaustion. According to their website, the foundation is a marriage between philanthropy and commerce. The foundation is partially funded by a luxury lifestyle brand of the same name.

Those who wish to support Karan’s work through Urban Zen can purchase tickets to the event honoring her online at longhouse.org. Additionally, three Urban Zen retail locations—including Sag Harbor (16 Main Street), New York City and Los Angeles—support the Urban Zen Foundation through proceeds from their retail sales.

Learn more about Urban Zen Foundation and their retail outlets and products at urbanzen.org and urbanzen.com, respectively.