Designer Karuna Scheinfeld’s career is defined by a rare combination of curiosity, commitment to authenticity and respect for the end user. She looks for the magic in every season by bringing the humanity into design development, beginning with collaborative research free of ego and relationships with production partners who take integrity personally. Valuing people is a constant in Karuna’s experience in the outdoor industry, from appreciation of the mentors she learns from, respect for the teams she builds, or responsibility to the people who buy her work.
For almost 20 years, Karuna has worked with brands like Woolrich and Ralph Lauren to create products that add value to the life of the consumer. We spoke with her during the first season of her new position as VP of Design at Canada Goose about knowing when to stand your ground, the power of learning to delegate and the highest compliment a designer can get.
A lot has happened recently for Canada Goose, such as the opening of retail outlets, investments in e-commerce and a new knitwear line. What are you most excited about working on in the coming year?
I think it’s an exciting moment for the brand, where the company is realizing its global potential, and how much the authenticity and integrity of its product adds value on a global level. To be able to look at what that authenticity means for an elevated global presence is really exciting. It’s not a category for me, it’s not a product line. It’s about the challenge. How do you continue to grow a brand with so much integrity in an industry where the faster you grow, the faster you tend to fall? How do you take that and do it right?
How do you see the idea of integrity in design as related to the heritage of Canada Goose?
Part of the value I add comes from having spent years thinking about why something is the right thing to create. To consider: if we can make anything in the world, why would we make this thing? I get to make a bridge between all of this incredible product originally created to solve extreme problems and really pull it apart to understand how we can make an average person’s life better.
Related to making lives better, what is the outdoor consumer looking for at the moment?
What the industry is coming up against is the fallacy that certain design traditions and details in outdoor are actually more functional. Seeing how people are actually wearing product and how much crossover between industries there are is forcing outdoor to ask, “Is that truly functional? What does functional mean now?”
The customer has experienced really functional garments, but they don’t want to only get that function when they’re outdoors in nature. People innovating with a more holistic point of view are going to be really successful while those stuck looking at it from one end use are not.
It relates to the function people are experiencing from every single object in their lives. It’s revolutionary what’s happened in the last 10 years, so it changes the consumer’s attitude and opens up the door for them to potentially pay more for something that is really better and changes their quality of life.
This is also a burden to bear as a design leader—a Canada Goose jacket can be an investment, which is a huge responsibility because I have to make sure I’m providing something that’s worth it.
Many collections you’ve been a part of have been very fully formed in terms of narrative inspiration. How does developing a story fit into your own design process?
How it happens is actually very magical and serendipitous, and I’ve been getting better at allowing that magic to happen rather than forcing it. At the beginning, we’re just collecting—garments, fabrics, experiences, something our grandfather gave us. Anything making us feel excited and that has meaning for the brand. I don’t need to know why. I just need to have a feeling about it and want my team to bring it in. Some of the best ideas, the best little nuggets, come from somebody in random spaces. It could be a customer, it could be a pattern maker, it could be a salesperson. It could be a materials representative who has been working with the brand for 30 years and he has this jacket he’s had for 20 years and tells us this crazy story about it.
So I collect until I can’t collect anymore and have to nail something down. At that point, it’s been simmering for a while and usually things are bubbling to the top. A concept, a name, an experience, a place—something starting to connect all of these seemingly random pieces.
In the best seasons, those are the magic moments when the collection has a real power, which everybody feels. It’s this domino effect that is really amazing and exciting and eventually reaches all the way to the end consumer. After having those experiences, nothing less feels like it’s good enough.
It seems clear what excites you about design, but how has that excitement evolved? What excites you now versus when you were starting out?
It’s become way more sophisticated in the sense that I have higher expectations of what integrity means. To me, that’s asking are you doing something for the right reasons, and do you even know what those reasons are?
I want to make things that people keep forever and don’t want to throw away. To create objects people are so attached to, that work so well, that are so beautiful, useful and meaningful, they just can’t give them up. That is the highest compliment I could get.
What is the best idea you learned from your mentors over the years?
The way they lived. They didn’t compromise and really took chances in service of better design. My mentors showed me the right way to do that, trying hard to overcome obstacles and working well with other people, but ultimately standing your ground, having a strong point of view, and never giving up that sense of product first. It’s not about ego or arrogance, it’s about standing for something.
What knowledge have you picked up on how to manage people and work with a team?
Nobody ever trained me in any kind of management skill, ever. I don’t think that’s a good thing, let me make that clear. I had to figure it out.
I believe in unknowable things, like chemistry and talent, and believe intuition is part of a great designer. So I trust those things, but I also learned to delegate and express myself to my team so I didn’t have to do everything myself. That’s a value I have—if I’m the only one who can do it, and nobody can do better, then I’ve failed as a leader.
So I delegate and it becomes about humility because suddenly they’re having better ideas than I had. When you embrace that and have the confidence to say, “I couldn’t have done this without you,” something incredible happens because you’re able to function as a sum of more than your own skills and talents. But you have to be able to let go of your ego and know admitting your idea wasn’t as good doesn’t make you a weak leader. It makes you a strong one.
How often are companies allowing designers to take that type of leadership role?
A lot of companies look at design as something they have to control. They’re almost a bit scared of designers and think of them as these crazy people that need to be guided and controlled. It’s not often you find designers growing into C-level positions, but I think that’s a mistake. Companies that invest deeply in creative talent and give them the breadth to move beyond the normal constraints of creative roles gain an incredible edge.
As you’ve become one of those leaders, how do you see your overall approach to the Canada Goose customers evolving?
We’ve talked a lot about whether the customer has given us permission to make something, trying to understand their perspective and whether something feels like it’s “Canada Goose” or not. Knitwear felt like Canada Goose and there are a lot of other things I think feel like Canada Goose, but the company has a lot of patience. Anything worth doing is worth doing right. I really respect that. It makes me feel respected as a designer and it makes me confident we’re going to continue to come out with best-in-class product no matter what we do.
Having that feel like a covenant is pretty powerful. You feel responsible for living up to your customers’ expectations and even upping the ante to provide them with something that’s better than they ever imagined.
Images courtesy of Canada Goose.
xx Nina
This article was originally published in RANGE Magazine Issue Eight.