Diane von Furstenberg

Had a chance to sit down with her recently to talk about her extraordinary life and her dedication to philanthropy and to her family. So let me ask you about something I can say I'm not an expert on which is fashion. Nobody's ever considered me a fashion plate. You invented something called the rap dress about forty plus years ago, almost fifty years, and it's one of the most famous designs in the last fifty years, and women are still

wearing it. So tell me where you surprised that after almost fifty years, women are still wearing the same design. Obviously different dress, but same design as something that was popular almost fifty years ago. Yeah, I mean it's you know, people say I created the rap dress, which is true, but really the rap dress created me because because of that dress, I became the woman I wanted to be. I became independent. I by being an independent it paid for my children education, It paid for my house in

the country, paid for my apartment. So it made me free, and it made me liberated. And it was the time of the women's liberation. So and because it was a dress, the more confident I became, and the more the more confidence I was, I was passing on this confidence to other women through this little dress that I would go

around and wrap around women's bodies. And so in a sense now that I look back that I'm an older woman and so on I looked back, it's almost like I was a conduit, you know, I was a conduit for confidence for many generations of women. So how long did it take to develop the rap dress? Was it something that came to you like that or was it many years? How did it develop? When I was twenty, I went out of college and I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew the kind of

woman I wanted to be. I wanted to be a woman in charge. So how which though, is going to be my door? So I thought maybe fashion? So at first I worked in Paris for a fashion um photographer's agent, and that got me wow. I discovered the world of fashion. And then I met the father of a friend of the broad of my boyfriend whatever in Italy, and he said, you know, you should come and discover the other side of fashion, where we make fashion. So and I discovered

how you know all about printing. You know how you buy artwork and how you put it in repeat, and how you printed, and you worked with the colorist and and learned how to do a color palette. So it was really a craft. And so I didn't think that any of this was going to be useful to me at all, but it was very interesting. I then went to America for the first time to visit my boyfriend. My mother gave me a ticket to go to New York and visit him, and I discovered New York and

I couldn't believe it. It was ninety yeah, I mean I couldn't believe how. I said, I have to come back here. And also while I was in New York because my my boyfriend then he was a young, very attractive prince, so he was very much, you know, in demand in New York. He was very good looking and because he was in the man and I came as his girl friend. All the designer wanted to lend me close and blah blah blah, and and so while I was here here, I mean I stayed about a month.

I think I discovered so much. I discovered New York. I discovered all these young designers. And when I went back, all I could think about is how do I get back to New York? How do I get back to New And when I went back to work in the factory, all of a sudden, I looked at everything there and I said, oh, there is my door. There's an opportunity. Let me try to make some easy, easy, little dresses that I can then go and sell in America. And

that's how I started. So I would stay late at night with a pattern maker and make some samples and so on. But for those who are watching, who may not be fashion experts, what exactly is a rap drop? You know what was so unique about you wrap your body? So it started from these little sweaters that ballerinas where you know when they when they get cold, and it's it's it's wrapped. It's like a kimono, right again, Japanese kimono but it's very tight. And because it was jersey,

you wrap it very tight. That was the difference. And it was just a rap dress and it was printed because I was in this print factory, so it was a wrapped first. It was a wraptop with a rap with a skirt, and it did really well, and then I said, I've got to turn it into a dress, and then it became addressed. And before I knew, at the age of twenty six, I was making twenty five

thousand rab dresses a week. And you became very famous, and I became n There's a story that Newsweek was going to put Gerald Ford President Night's States on the cover and they for winning his primary. Yes, but then I discovered that it was the month of March, and the months of March is usually when they want subscription renewals, and so they would think that maybe I would be but atractive woman might be better. Okay, so let's go back a moment um. You grew up in what country, Belgium?

And your mother was a survivor of of Auschwitz? Is that right? Yes? And how did she survive Auschwitz? He weighed only fifty nine pounds when she came. How do you survive. I don't know, I don't know. I mean very very, very few people survived. She survived. She was twenty two. I mean she got arrested, she was one. She stayed, she stayed fourteen months, um and she she got she really got arrested very late. It was May forty four. And but she worked while she was there.

She worked at the group factory. So while you know, when you were working, they wouldn't kill you. So that that's the first thing. And then after that there was the famous death March, and they went and they walked and to another camp, Ravens Brook. A lot of people died on the march. She thought she was going to die on the march, but she didn't. And then after that, as they were losing the war, they pushed back more

and and then she ended up in another camp. And then one day the Germans had gone, then the Russian came and raped every girl and uh, and then after that the Americans arrived. Now, your mother had a tattoo that Alschwitz two. So do you ever asked her when you were a little what? Yeah? She everybody asked. And then she had removed she had one number and then crossed and then the number. I mean, for me, it was you know, it wasn't odd because I had always seen it like that. I knew she had been to

the camp. I mean, you know, there was a little talk about it, but she shielded me from it all without making it a big mystery. So you come to New York. You're the queen of New York because you're the princess of New York is you're very young, you're in your twenties, You're made a lot of money by any normal standards, and you're the queen of the fashion world. Right, let's say, right, so how do you top that? There had no such thing as going to the top, top

top and continuing to go to the top. Also, I think it's really important. I always make a point to tell people that sometimes when you are at the very top, that that that time I was on the cover of Newsweek and on the front page of the World Street Journal, and everybody was buying my dresses, and I was acclaimed as the big success. I myself already knew that things were so easy because in the way I had saturated the market. You know, everybody had a rap dress and

nobody needed to buy another rap dress. Everybody had many rap dresses. Okay, so did your business go down every Yes? Then I licensed that, you know, and uh, and then I like, you know, I mean, life is like it's you know, you go as you go. So I licensed my dress business to a company that I thought had more experience than I did, and they continued to develop it, and I decided, now I'm going to be a studo

and I started acus Many company. But while you were doing that, you led the very interesting life of a socialite in the seventies in New York. You're meeting with Andy Warhol and other people. What was that life? Like? Everybody famous who was young was a friend of yours. New York City in the seventies was many things. For one thing, it was very dirty, it was very dangerous, and it was very cheap, and therefore a lot of artists were here. It was very exciting time. It was

a time that people wanted freedom. We we thought our generations ought we invented freedom, which of course we didn't. Uh. And it was it was fun and there were a lot of creative people, and Andy Waholl was everywhere, and there was a lot of other people and and it was fun. But I mean, it's always fun when you're young. So Andy Warhol said, hey, I'll paint the picture of you.

Was that happening a lot? Uh? Andy Warholl did my first portrait one night, very late in the anybody was looking for a white wall because he would take a polaroid and then he would use the polaroid and and and and paint from there and then and he was he needed a white wall. And in my office, in my home, they had no white wall. So we went the kitchen and because the white wall in my kitchen was so tiny, I lifted my arm and that was

the first time he painted me. And then he painted me later for a show that he was planning to do in the eighties called Beauties. And did he did he give you the paintings or he he gave me? Okay, the first one he gave me one, I bought two. The second time he gave me one, I bought none. And when he died, I bought them all. So let me ask you. Your business is moving forward. You're in the cosmetics business, You're getting another businesses fragrance and other things.

Life sounds like it's great. Everything is going well. Did at some point all the businesses go down, and I for a whilington wasn't so good? Were they always ups and down and ups and down? I had the first phase of my life is very much American dream. Okay, I lived a true American dream. Really. I was young, I was inexperience, and I became very successful after that. You know, I had difficulties. I had enough, and then

finally I ended up selling the cosmetic and uh. And then of course by then my children are teenagers, so they went to board in school. At that time I decided, I went back to Europe. I lived in Paris for a few years, and then I came back here and then I decided. And then by then my brand was really wow. It was like bad. It was in discount stores and everybody had done everything. And that was difficult. That was a difficult time for me to see because

everything until then was great and wonderful. Even when it wasn't great and wonderful, it was still exciting. But then coming back, I mean and seeing the brand and the people who were in charge of the brand, and they didn't care. I mean, there was no spirit, there was no there was no messenging, there was no nothing. It was that was really difficult, and as I don't know if it's as a result of that, but at the

same time, I also had a cancer. I had a cancer at the at the at the bottom, at the base of my tongue, and uh, and I think it has something to do with the fact that I couldn't express myself anyway. So I dealt with that, and I also then dealt with taking back my name and starting again.

You started all over the company now I guess known as DVF your initials, right, And so that company then began to recreate some of the things you've done before, including the rap dress, and it turned out the rap dress was more popular than even had been before practically, So was that a surprise to you that the rap dress was still so popular? You know, when it's your life, I mean, you know, it's just one day after another day after another day. It's only when you look back

that you are surprised. When you like back that you have time to say, oh, that was great. When you're living it, you just you know, survive. I mean, you know, a young woman, two children. I separated so quickly from my husband, and then you know, there's a lot to do running a company. Um, you know, so I didn't have the time to think, I'm I surprised and I what what does DVF now do? Well? Actually, DVF as has been many, many, many products over the years after

COVID and after all of the change. You know, COVID was also a moment of resecting, right, So I I don't want to take it. I can't say take advantage of something as negative as COVID, but we were forced to look at the business model and reset the business model because under COVID, people weren't going out in fashions, right, they weren't wearing fancy But also stores were closed, we had to close. So, I mean it's a lot of

different things at the same time. And of course the business online and so it was it was a moment to reset. So how was the business today, Well, it's being resetted and it's actually very interesting. You know. I'm a very positive person. My mother, my mother was a survivor, right, so as a survivor, life is what matters, right As as a daughter of a survivor. The minute I was born,

I mean she wasn't supposed to survive. I wasn't supposed to be born, and yet I was born, So I realized that the moment of my birth was already a victory. So anything that happened after that was a plus. So the company you run today is a privately own company. Have you ever thought of taking your company public? No? But you know right now it was important for me.

Now is the legacy moment of my life. Right now is the time that you look back at your life and you I'm happy to see that somehow it's coherent. I was born on New Year's Eve, so every year I make resolution, so I divine my life in three columns. One is my family, one is my business, and my my my my brand, and one is me. So looking back now in my life, I look at my family. You know, my two children, my five grandchildren, and I'm very proud of them. I'm very proud of who they are.

I'm proud of the people they are. I'm proud that they are not banal, they are fun, they're interesting, they're generous,

and they care. Then there's my brand. So there also I had to reset the brand and make sure it was closed because sometimes when you grow, you lose your initial spirit, your initial reason to be, and then the third part me is about the impact is about today using all the things I have, my voice, my experiences, my knowledge, my memories, my experiences, my resources, and using that in order to make other women be the woman

they want to be. Do you think people who are CEO should speak out on public issues if they think that something bad is happening or something good is happening. Do you like to speak out on public issues? I I like to speak in general. I speak to myself and I like to speak and I like to use Yeah. I do believe. I think words are very powerful and I think that if you have a voice, you should speak. Yes. So from reading your books, and you've written eight books,

I think it is it's a lot of books. Um. You um said in one of the books that what you wanted to do was to live a man's life and a woman's body. What you meant by that was what oh? Men? By that mean that I wanted to be able to do everything a man does and yet being enjoying being a woman. Yeah, because men could start businesses and could do other things that traditionally didn't do. Yes, so men can call a woman and I mean doing all kinds of things. So why can't a woman do that?

That was the most important thing for me, to be a liberated woman. But I was part of that generation as a feminist. You will admire a Gloria Steinem. Gloria Steinem for me as a feminist, she was my idol. She was my idol. Now she's a friend and and but and I remember she created that magazine called ms MS and which means you, we're not either miss or missus. And I remember when I separated and then eventually divorced from my husband, the Prince. I joked and I said,

I gave up. So when her husband separated, that's a long time ago, a long time ago. And you married Barry Diller. After I separated from my the father my children, I met Barry and we fell in love and we were together for five years. But I guess that again, it was the seventies and it was important for me to experience. And so we separated, and I, you know, I lived my life, but Barry and I we kept

very close. I also kept very close to my first husband, and somehow Barry and I think we both knew somehow at some point we would end up together. And then about twenty years ago, yeah, twenty years ago. Um, we got married, okay, and both of you together have been extracted freely successful in the business world and also in the philanthropy world. Let me ask you about your philanthropy for a moment. You and your husband helped to create

the Highline. Well, when I started the company again in when I was I came here, n uh, I say, why am I runting those expensive offices uptown? Let me buy a little building downtown. And I came in this neighborhood, meetback and full of butchers. They were only butchers. And I bought a little carriage house and I decided to make that my showroom and my office. And everybody said, what are you doing there? Who wants to go and work there? Smelled so bad, blah blah blah. But I

did it anyway. And then when you moved to a new neighborhood, you meet your neighbors. And I met these two young guys who had a dream. And the dream was to transform this elevated railroad railway that went from Gunsberg all the way to Dravid Center. It was abandoned, and to turn it into a park. And it was going to be knocked down Anyway, those two guys had this dream and they saw my studio and they said, you mind, you think you could do it? We could

have We could do a fundraising in your studio. And that's how my relationship with the neighborhood and where the highlights started. For one thing, we made it, we turn this neighborhood into m historical preservation. Then somehow we turned convinced. We turned around the high Line, and it was very difficult because all the developers wanted the real estate. Those same developers, by by the way, now are so proud to be on the high Line. The high Line became

the number one destination for two tourists. You are now involved in helping to repair the others island buildings. Is that right? Well? Yes, first I was. I'm on the board of and of the foundation of the Statue of Liberty Ellis Island, and the first thing I did was raised money for to create the museum form the Statue of Liberty. So I got very close to her, Lady Liberty. I didn't want to do it. I really didn't want to say if I go on another board, my husband

would be so upset. And then he read my book The Man who wanted to get me. And in my book he read that my mother had written me a note saying, God saved me so that I can give your life. By giving you life, you gave me my life back. You are therefore my torture of freedom. So he underlined that and he said, you see, you've got to come and help the statue of liberty. So the hardest thing in life, I've often said is to be happy.

But you seemed like a very happy person. It's like nature, nothing ever stopped, so you could be super happy one minute and then something happens. So it's just it's just living is the joy of life. For any young woman that's watching this wants to be the next Diana von Fursterburg, what would you recommend? I think the most important thing

in life is the relationship you have with yourself. Once you have a good relationship with yourself, any other relationship is a plus and not the most And the second advice is to be as true to yourself as you possibly can. And it's not easy, and you have to accept and own things you may not like. But the more you could be you, the happier you would be. Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen