Best Friends Trudie Styler and Donna Karan Team Up for Worthy Causes

On Thursday evening, former Haute Living cover subject Donna Karan hosted a party to launch Trudie Styler’s new mind-body-fitness DVD series from Gaiam, Inc., Warrior Yoga. The series includes Pilates, yoga, and dance-inspired workouts, all set to music from Styler’s rocker hubby, Sting, filmed at select locations throughout their Tuscan estate.

The cocktail reception was held at Karan’s Urban Zen Loft in the West Village, a dramatic space that is part of Karan’s Urban Zen Foundation promoting well being, the empowerment of children, and the preservation of cultures around the world.

Guests sipped on cocktails, snacked on hors d’oeuvres, and flipped through copies of Haute Living New York’s December/January issue, where Styler tells readers about the inspirations and settings for Warrior Yoga, her role as a social activist, and her latest film projects.

Styler and Sting were joined by entertainers like Bernadette Peters and celebrity yoga instructors James D’Silva, who has trained Madonna and Tara Stiles, the former model who Vanity Fair dubbed “the coolest yoga instructor ever.”

Insider Scoop:

Donna Karan introduced Styler as “my friend, my mentor, my soul mate” and praised her as a “voice of change.” Addressing the crowd, Styler spoke about how “yoga is not about putting your leg over your head” but “an opportunity to touch people.” (It should be noted that Styler, who will be 56 in January, wore her tight black dress and five-inch heels quite well.) She thanked her collaborator James D’Silva for his rigorous yoga instruction. Styler who, along with her husband, has been very public about her use of yoga in the bedroom joked, “I think sadomasochism is going to take the place of tantric sex in 2010.”

She then turned her attention to the environment, a cause she has fought for tirelessly for decades. She spoke of communities in the Ecuadorian Rainforest who are suffering from unclean water that has been polluted with carcinogens, due to “will irresponsibility” of “big business.” Over the last two years, Styler and Sting’s Rainforest Foundation has partnered with UNICEF Ecuador and the local Amazon Defense Fund to install more than 200 tanks of clean water in the community. A portion of the DVD sales will go to support the water project.

Karan was already preparing for a documentary screening she planned to host the following evening of For the Next Seven Generations about the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers Council. She was instrumental in bringing six of the 13 grandmothers to New York to speak at the screening over the weekend. “I think these people have the wisdom of everything,” she said of the grandmothers, whose mission is to preserve the world’s environment and indigenous cultures.

From the looks of it, Donna Karan and Trudie Styler might to know a little something about world-changing too. You can read more about Trudie Styler in Haute Living’s feature, “The Peaceful Warrior”.

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