Wrap superstar: Designer Diane von Furstenberg tells her story
How many designers have a biography that reads like a blockbuster novel? How many create a garment so revolutionary that it actually changes lives? How many dare to speak out against racism in fashion? Carola Long meets the incomparable Diane von Furstenberg
Diane von Furstenberg at the High Line in New York © Getty Images
Thursday, 27 March 2008
Diane von Furstenberg's brand logo is a pair of lips. But when we meet, I am struck by a sartorial touch that could stand for the woman herself. The tortoiseshell reading glasses tucked neatly into her cleavage seem to symbolise the way she has fused intelligence and sex appeal, business sense and glamour to create a fashion business whose wholesale sales will near $200m this year alone.
We meet in her pink-walled private office, halfway up the company's vast headquarters in New York's Meatpacking district. The slightly space-age, minimalist boutique is on the ground floor, press offices where Von Furstenberg will be hosting a charity play to mark International Women's Day on the first, the designer's studio and offices on the second, and her apartment, with crystal-shaped skylight, at the top. True to fashion cliché, the employees patrolling the building are a team of no-nonsense, immaculately presented glamazons, who manage to make supposedly convivial questions "How are you?", "Have you had a nice day?" sound tinged with sarcasm thanks to brittle manners and New York uptalk. And, of course, when Von Furstenberg slinks into the office where I have been positioned on a sofa scattered with zebra-print cushions to await her arrival, she is fashionably late.
Von Furstenberg rose to fame as a fashion designer and society figure in 1970s New York, when her figure-hugging, jersey "wrap" dress became a cult item, both for the Studio 54 crowd and the Park Avenue set. Over the next 30 years, she saw her business soar, decline and, in the last decade, resurge in popularity, to become the multimillion-dollar fashion empire it is today. This evening, she is dressed in an above-the-knee wrap dress "I don't really wear other designers any more," she explains chunky gold jewellery, red-soled Louboutin stilettos and flesh-coloured fishnets. At 62, Von Furstenberg still has what Town & Country magazine attributed to her in 1972: "the sultriness of a biblical temptress". Her allure is due, in part at least, to her natural confidence, and a relaxed acceptance of the ageing process. "I obviously don't feel under pressure to look young, because I have had no Botox or surgery. I don't judge people who choose to have it, but I don't want to erase who I am," she says. As she talks, she crosses and uncrosses her legs, curls and tucks her calves up against her body, and lowers her eyelids in a way that, combined with her direct manner and husky Belgian-with-a-hint-of-American accent, is a disconcerting mix of kitten and tiger.
Accordingly, Von Furstenberg is capable of showing her professional claws. She has sued the cut-price fashion chains Target and Forever 21 for copying her designs, and, as president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America a role she has held since July 2006 Von Furstenberg has spoken out on the two most controversial issues facing the fashion industry: the prevalence of underweight models, and the under-representation of those from different racial backgrounds, albeit in the most moderate of terms.
She sent a memo to CFDA members encouraging them to create fashion shows "that are truly multicultural", and she includes more black models in her shows than most designers. But she favours voluntary change rather than legislation, saying: "I think all races are represented in America much more than in many other places, but it's also nice to remind people about that ethnic mix. I would like to see more black models and women from different ethnic backgrounds, but I also think that when you are casting, you just choose the most beautiful girl you can find."
On the vexed subject of size-zero models, she is less equivocal: "The fashion industry has a responsibility to represent a healthy image of women, but to start weighing them and putting them against a wall and making them feel like animals? No."
Von Furstenberg's take on feminism is more pragmatic than intellectual. Asked if she subscribes to a particular school of feminist thought, she says: "Women inspire me... so I enjoy women's stories and biographies. I am interested in all women.
"Our strength has nothing to do with the fact that we can't look good or have good legs, strength is something entirely independent. Sometimes, when people hear the word 'feminist', they think that means looking down on the idea of being feminine, but you can be feminine and feminist. But I do believe in the strength of women and I do believe that women can save the world."
Indeed, female strength both her own and other people's is a defining quality for Von Furstenberg. Not only did she build up her business from scratch, but after it crumbled around her in the 1980s when the market became saturated, she staged one of fashion's most impressive comebacks by reintroducing the wrap dress as a core line in the late 1990s. Von Furstenberg had noticed that her daughter and her friends were wearing vintage versions of the dress, and it was reintroduced to Saks department store on Fifth Avenue in 1997. "People say, 'Oh, the wrap dress is over, it's this, it's that', but then, all of a sudden, Demi Moore and Madonna are hosting the hot Oscar party and what are they wearing? A DVF gold wrap dress!
"It is actually more fun the second time around," adds Von Furstenberg, triumphantly.
The source of Von Furstenberg's resilience was her Greek-born, Jewish mother, Lily Nahmias, who died seven years ago. In the spring of 1944, Nahmias was arrested in Brussels and spent 14 months being transported between several Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz.
How many designers have a biography that reads like a blockbuster novel? How many create a garment so revolutionary that it actually changes lives? How many dare to speak out against racism in fashion? Carola Long meets the incomparable Diane von Furstenberg
Diane von Furstenberg at the High Line in New York © Getty Images
Thursday, 27 March 2008
Diane von Furstenberg's brand logo is a pair of lips. But when we meet, I am struck by a sartorial touch that could stand for the woman herself. The tortoiseshell reading glasses tucked neatly into her cleavage seem to symbolise the way she has fused intelligence and sex appeal, business sense and glamour to create a fashion business whose wholesale sales will near $200m this year alone.
We meet in her pink-walled private office, halfway up the company's vast headquarters in New York's Meatpacking district. The slightly space-age, minimalist boutique is on the ground floor, press offices where Von Furstenberg will be hosting a charity play to mark International Women's Day on the first, the designer's studio and offices on the second, and her apartment, with crystal-shaped skylight, at the top. True to fashion cliché, the employees patrolling the building are a team of no-nonsense, immaculately presented glamazons, who manage to make supposedly convivial questions "How are you?", "Have you had a nice day?" sound tinged with sarcasm thanks to brittle manners and New York uptalk. And, of course, when Von Furstenberg slinks into the office where I have been positioned on a sofa scattered with zebra-print cushions to await her arrival, she is fashionably late.
Von Furstenberg rose to fame as a fashion designer and society figure in 1970s New York, when her figure-hugging, jersey "wrap" dress became a cult item, both for the Studio 54 crowd and the Park Avenue set. Over the next 30 years, she saw her business soar, decline and, in the last decade, resurge in popularity, to become the multimillion-dollar fashion empire it is today. This evening, she is dressed in an above-the-knee wrap dress "I don't really wear other designers any more," she explains chunky gold jewellery, red-soled Louboutin stilettos and flesh-coloured fishnets. At 62, Von Furstenberg still has what Town & Country magazine attributed to her in 1972: "the sultriness of a biblical temptress". Her allure is due, in part at least, to her natural confidence, and a relaxed acceptance of the ageing process. "I obviously don't feel under pressure to look young, because I have had no Botox or surgery. I don't judge people who choose to have it, but I don't want to erase who I am," she says. As she talks, she crosses and uncrosses her legs, curls and tucks her calves up against her body, and lowers her eyelids in a way that, combined with her direct manner and husky Belgian-with-a-hint-of-American accent, is a disconcerting mix of kitten and tiger.
Accordingly, Von Furstenberg is capable of showing her professional claws. She has sued the cut-price fashion chains Target and Forever 21 for copying her designs, and, as president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America a role she has held since July 2006 Von Furstenberg has spoken out on the two most controversial issues facing the fashion industry: the prevalence of underweight models, and the under-representation of those from different racial backgrounds, albeit in the most moderate of terms.
She sent a memo to CFDA members encouraging them to create fashion shows "that are truly multicultural", and she includes more black models in her shows than most designers. But she favours voluntary change rather than legislation, saying: "I think all races are represented in America much more than in many other places, but it's also nice to remind people about that ethnic mix. I would like to see more black models and women from different ethnic backgrounds, but I also think that when you are casting, you just choose the most beautiful girl you can find."
On the vexed subject of size-zero models, she is less equivocal: "The fashion industry has a responsibility to represent a healthy image of women, but to start weighing them and putting them against a wall and making them feel like animals? No."
Von Furstenberg's take on feminism is more pragmatic than intellectual. Asked if she subscribes to a particular school of feminist thought, she says: "Women inspire me... so I enjoy women's stories and biographies. I am interested in all women.
"Our strength has nothing to do with the fact that we can't look good or have good legs, strength is something entirely independent. Sometimes, when people hear the word 'feminist', they think that means looking down on the idea of being feminine, but you can be feminine and feminist. But I do believe in the strength of women and I do believe that women can save the world."
Indeed, female strength both her own and other people's is a defining quality for Von Furstenberg. Not only did she build up her business from scratch, but after it crumbled around her in the 1980s when the market became saturated, she staged one of fashion's most impressive comebacks by reintroducing the wrap dress as a core line in the late 1990s. Von Furstenberg had noticed that her daughter and her friends were wearing vintage versions of the dress, and it was reintroduced to Saks department store on Fifth Avenue in 1997. "People say, 'Oh, the wrap dress is over, it's this, it's that', but then, all of a sudden, Demi Moore and Madonna are hosting the hot Oscar party and what are they wearing? A DVF gold wrap dress!
"It is actually more fun the second time around," adds Von Furstenberg, triumphantly.
The source of Von Furstenberg's resilience was her Greek-born, Jewish mother, Lily Nahmias, who died seven years ago. In the spring of 1944, Nahmias was arrested in Brussels and spent 14 months being transported between several Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz.