Immigrant of the Day: Diane von Furstenberg (Belgium), Fashion Designer
Diane von Furstenberg started showing her designs to New York boutiques and magazine editors in the late 1960s. The dresses she created weren’t very expensive, wrap dresses made of gentle jersey, gorgeously patterned, with a deep-cut V-neck and light belt. “It’s a dress that was practical and pretty and sexy,” von Furstenberg tells NPR’s Audie Cornish. It’s been described, she says, as “a dress that you get the men with … but he doesn’t mind taking you to his mother.” It sold by the millions. In her new memoir, The Woman I Wanted to Be, von Furstenberg tells her unlikely story of success. Her mother was a Belgian Holocaust survivor.
Diane von Furstenberg initially rose to prominence when she married into the German princely House of Fürstenberg, as the wife of Prince Egon of Fürstenberg. Following their divorce in 1972, she has continued to use his family name, although she is no longer entitled to use the title princess She re-launched her fashion company, Diane von Fürstenberg (DvF), in 1997, with the reintroduction of her famous wrap dress. The company is now a global luxury lifestyle brand offering four complete collections a year. DvF is available in over 70 countries and 45 free-standing shops worldwide. In 2005, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) awarded her the Lifetime Achievement Award and the following year named her as their president, a position she has held since 2006.
Wrap dress, 1975–76 Diane Von Furstenberg
Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
KJ