I’ve had such a full life, I should be 140!
She partied with Andy Warhol at Studio 54, sold 15 million wrap dresses and this year clawed her business back from the brink. But fashion doyenne Diane von Furstenberg, 73, isn’t about to retire...
The longer version is that she worked for a man who printed silk scarves in Italy. ‘and he invented this jersey fabric so we printed on the jersey fabric. I started to make samples of dresses. Before I knew it, I got pregnant, I married, I moved to america and I started my business.’
even 40 years later, she didn’t fully grasp the significance of the wrap dress — whose fans include Michelle Obama and the Duchess of Cambridge. ‘and it still exists! I’ve sold millions of them. It’s ridiculous.’
But 2020 was not the first time the company stumbled. In the mid-1980s, saddled by debt, she sold. In 1992, she produced a sellout collection for shopping channel QVC, so relaunched in 1997.
actually, 2020 started on a high. In Paris in February she stood proud as Christine Lagarde, wearing a scarlet Diane von Fürstenberg pantsuit, pinned the Légion d’Honneur to the strap of Diane’s dress. as Lagarde compared her to Coco Chanel, friends including anna Wintour, Jeff Bezos, of amazon, and chatshow host Seth Myers looked on.
Lagarde, president of the european Central Bank, told them: ‘The woman clothed by Diane von Fürstenberg is free in her movement and free to take her life in her own hands.’
Diane had just returned from Sweden, where H&M asked her to design a home collection, which launches next year, and had also started on an idea for her book, out in March. Initially, she had envisaged a ‘fun’ book of advice, ‘on the verge of frivolous’; a little book of aphorisms of the sort empowered millennials chuck about on Instagram.
BUTwith business on a knife-edge, it took on a serious tone. ‘ What I realised is “own it” is the secret to life. It works with a child, an older person, in business, in love. No matter what happens, the most important part is to own it. There’s no point being delusional or in denial.
‘[If] you own your imperfections, they become your assets; you own your vulnerability, it becomes your strength. There’s no shame. The minute you own, you are in charge.’ She uses ‘we’ instead of ‘you’ when dispensing advice in the book because ‘I didn’t want to sound condescending. You know, “Who am I to give advice?” ’ although I’m not sure that’s ever stopped her before. ‘I’m an old woman, so I have a lot of advice to give to everybody, which my mother used to do and I used to hate it and now I’m worse than she is.’
The trials of Covid meant every word took on new significance. Using a dictionary format, she picked 250 words ‘that were meaningful to me’ and worked on definitions. ‘I’m very happy with it,’ she says. ‘Pick a letter.’ C? She looks over her specs and reads a list of words from the manuscript. ‘right: Character, clarity, core, children. Choose one.’
Children? ‘I have seven children counting my five grandchildren. as all mothers do, I want more for them than I want for myself. as a young mother, I was worried about being too strong, to have an overpowering voice. So I made sure to give them plenty of space to express theirs. I certainly succeeded in that, as I am not often lovingly belittled by them.’
Lockdown has also meant staying full-time at her 100-acre farm Cloudwalk — where she is spending Christmas with a diminished group because her family ‘will be spread around because of Covid’. She bought it aged 26 in the first flurry of success.
‘My children grew up here, my grandchildren. But I’d never really stayed for months at a time. This house is everything about me: all my diaries, books, everything. I have built a cemetery for myself, so it’s very important.’ an actual cemetery? ‘I love being here!’
Her study is in an anteroom, a desk pushed up against a pinboard of family photos, press cuttings and drawings by her grandchildren. This is where she got to work every morning. ‘By writing this book I realised that, because I’ve never lied to myself,’ she says.
Not lying includes embracing age. ‘I can’t understand people who lie about it,’ she says. ‘age is proof that you’ve been alive. I’ve had such a full one, I should be 140. When you get to the sunset of your life, it’s a time for reflection, but also to share your experience, your knowledge, to help others. I was lucky. I was very privileged.’
SHeand husband Barry have a number of other homes: her apartment in New York, her Paris flat and his vast Beverly Hills estate — plus his 305 ft yacht. ‘But the most inspiring thing for me to talk about is not, “Oh yes, at age 28, I was on the cover of Newsweek”, but the challenges: how sometimes everyone thinks you’re at the very top, but you know you’re going through difficulties. Or when people think you’re finished, and that isn’t true, because you already have taken steps to come back.’
Not all challenges are workrelated. Diane, who partied with Warhol at Studio 54, defines herself as bohemian and, according to her biography, neither she nor her first husband were faithful.
egon was bisexual, and among her flings were Omar Sharif, richard Gere and — in the same weekend — ryan O’Neal and Warren Beatty. ‘ Life was fun if you were young, pretty and successful in the 1970s.’ Both husbands were supportive. ‘all the men I was with, really — other than one. But also there was no choice, they just had to be supportive.’
Has she ever had her heart broken? She pauses. ‘I’ve suffered. I’ve been stupid. But I really did not want to be the person waiting for the call. I wanted a man’s life in a woman’s body. Of course, I had my heart . . .’ She stalls. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever used that word’ — she means broken. ‘I wouldn’t give them that much credit. I would say that I’ve been very much in love many, many times and I’ve lost it. But I’ve never lost myself.’
The most important issue to her now is inequality, abuse and violence towards women: ‘ I am certainly going to make it my life cause.’ She has been a phenomenal campaigner and urges everyone to do the same. ‘It’s not the year to focus on wrapping presents,’ she says. ‘It is the year for each of us to pledge to fight inequality, abuse and violence. as a family, we will be taking this pledge seriously.’