Diane von Furstenberg on life, love, and a wrap dress

Cruise the canals of Venice, amid the grand palazzos and Rialto Bridge, and it’s understandable why this iconic city is now home to one of fashion’s most iconic names: Diane von Furstenberg.

She spends about five months of the year in Venice: “It’s my stage,” she said. “It’s where I think.”

Now 79, von Furstenberg, or DVF, burst onto the scene in the 1970s. What made her famous? A single item of clothing inspired by the tops ballerinas wear, a little dress that was comfortable, practical and affordable.

Asked if she ever tires of talking about the wrap dress, von Furstenberg replied, “Well, I used to. Because I was doing all kinds of things, and people would say the wrap dress. I’d say, the wrap dress? Enough already. I’ve done so many more.”

The idea for the wrap dress, which debuted in 1974, came to her while watching, of all things, news coverage of Watergate. “Julie Eisenhower, the daughter of Nixon, is making a speech,” von Furstenberg said. “And oh my God, she’s wearing my little wrap top with a skirt in a snake print. And that’s when I thought, Oh, you know what? We should turn it into a dress.“

She would sell a million of them by 1976. (“It’s insane,” she said.) 

And at age 29, she landed on the cover of Newsweek, which crowned her “the most marketable female in fashion since Coco Chanel.”

Diane Simone Michele Halfin was born in Brussels, Belgium, on New Year’s Eve, 1946. Her father was a businessman; her mother, a survivor of the Holocaust, who weighed about 49 pounds when she was freed from the death camp. “But she came back,” von Furstenberg said. “Her mother fed her like a little bird every five minutes. And within six months she was normal. And 13 months later, I was born. And she used to say, ‘God saved me so I could give you life. By giving you life, you gave me mine back.'”

Before DVF became fashion royalty, she became a princess, marrying Ëgon von Furstenberg, a German-Italian prince. They had two children together, but their marriage didn’t last. It did, however, make headlines, most notably for their open relationship.

DVF’s love life, one could argue, is an open book. “Richard Gere was very sweet,” she said. “We had a little fling.”

She also had “other little flings” with Warren Beatty and Ryan O’Neal, on the same weekend. “Well, I once boasted about that, and then it stuck with me forever,” she said.

She has also talked about, when she was very young, falling in love with a boy, and then falling in love with a girl, at a time when sexual fluidity was not part of the conversation. “I mean, anyone who goes to boarding school knows that that happens,” she said. “I mean, yes, I did fall in love with this girl, and we still talk.”

In 2001, she would remarry, this time, to media mogul Barry Diller, another high-profile, headline-making romance – especially last year, after Diller, at age 83, revealed in a memoir he was attracted to men, but that it was not a conflict with his love for Diane.

She said she never saw that as a conflict. “Listen, when I met Barry, he was this hot guy. Magic happened. And it was passion. It was not something that I expected, at all.”

Asked how she felt about Diller going public in his memoir, von Furstenberg replied, “I didn’t feel anything. I mean, I encouraged him to do the book. It was important that he did the book. But I mean, he had opened to me long ago. So, no, I’m happy. He’s my soulmate. He’s my companion of life. I mean, he’s everything.”

Over the years, her business has had its own challenges, but the brand, through all of its financial ups and downs, survives.

“When people are at the top of their success – Oh, she’s so successful – well, maybe things aren’t so good,” von Furstenberg said. “And the same way when people say, Oh, she’s finished, that can’t be, I was already on the way up again.”

Today, DVF remains close to the company that bears her name, while a new generation leads its creative vision.

Instead, she is focused on designing what she’ll leave behind, like her annual DVF Awards, held just last week in Venice. Now in its 17th year, the awards celebrate women changing the world — from actress and activist Jane Fonda, to Pulitzer Prize-winning war photographer Lynsey Addario.

On New Year’s Eve, DVF will turn 80 years old, which she says she thinks about a lot. “I honor the year I’m going towards every year,” she said. “I am very sensitive about mortality and always have been.”

For Diane von Furstenberg, it’s a season of reflection. “I think that right now I am starting my last act,” she said. “I hope it won’t be too short of an act, but it’s definitely my last act – the winter of my life.”

Asked how she would want to be remembered, the designer replied, “As somebody who loved life and tried to honor it in every way.”

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Diane von Furstenberg on “Sunday Morning” (Video)
Watch profiles of DVF from 2003 and 2011, and an interview with von Furstenberg and Barry Diller from 2021

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Story produced by Sara Kugel. Editor: Steven Tyler.