Karen Walker is a noted New Zealand fashion designer.Walker was born in December 1969.She grew up in the Auckland suburb of Remuera and attended Epsom Girls' Grammar School.Aged 21, she married Mikhail Gherman.

Walker began her fashion label in 1987, and opened her first store in Newmarket, Auckland, in 1995. She began selling to Barneys New York in 1998, the same year she showed her first runway collection. In late 2011, she signed a partnership with United States-based retail chain Anthropologie.

Karen Walker flagship Britomart store in the Auckland CBD
She has designed clothes worn by Björk, Sienna Miller, Natalie Portman, M.I.A., Alexa Chung, Beth Ditto, Michael Haneke, Liv Tyler, Rihanna, Claire Danes, Zooey Deschanel and Jennifer Lopez.She designed clothes worn by Kate Winslet in the Michel Gondry film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

In the 2004 New Year Honours, Walker was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to the fashion industry.
In 2009 Walker received a World Class New Zealand Award in the Creative category.
In late 2011, she signed a partnership with United States-based retail chain Anthropologie.
She was promoted to Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to fashion design, in the 2014 New Year Honours.

Her designs are in over 1020 stores (including Harvey Nichols in London and various Barneys stores across the United States) in over 40 countries and she also has a few stand-alone boutiques back in New Zealand and one in Tokyo as well. over the past four years she has consistently been ranked in the Business of Fashion as one of the 500 powerhouses in the fashion industry.