Diane von Fürstenberg

Early years

Fürstenberg was born as Diane Simone Michelle Halfin in Brussels, Belgium, to Jewish parents. Her father was Romania-born Leon (Lipa) Halfin, who had migrated to Belgium in 1929 from Chişinău. Her mother was Greek-born Liliane Nahmias, a Holocaust survivor. 18 months before Fürstenberg was born, her mother was a prisoner at Auschwitz concentration camp. Furstenberg has spoken broadly about her mother's influence in her life, crediting her with teaching her that "fear is not an option".

Fürstenberg attended Madrid University before transferring to the University of Geneva to study economics. She then moved to Paris and worked as an assistant to fashion photographer's agent, Albert Koski. She left Paris for Italy to work as an apprentice to the textile manufacturer Angelo Ferretti in his factory, where she learned about cut, color and fabric. It was here that she designed and produced her first silk jersey dresses.

Career and brand

A year after marrying Prince Egon, Diane von Furstenberg began designing women's clothes - "The minute I knew I was about to be Egon's wife, I decided to have a career. I wanted to be someone of my own, and not just a plain little girl who got married beyond her desserts." Her former husband also became a fashion designer in 1974. After moving to New York, she met with high-profile Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, who declared her designs "absolutely smashing". She had her name listed on the Fashion Calendar for New York Fashion Week, and so her business was created.

In 1974 she introduced the knitted jersey "wrap dress", an example of which, due to its influence on women's fashion, is in the collection of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After the phenomenal success of the wrap dress, Furstenberg was featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine in 1976. The accompanying article declared her "the most marketable woman since Coco Chanel." She launched a cosmetic line and her first fragrance, "Tatiana", named after her daughter. The New York Times reported that by 1979 the annual retail sales for the company were $150 million.

In 1985, she moved to Paris, France where she founded Salvy, a French-language publishing house. Furstenberg started a number of other businesses including a line of cosmetics and a home-shopping business, which she launched in 1991. In 1992, Furstenberg sold 1.2 million dollars worth of her Silk Assets collection in two hours on QVC. She credited this success with giving her the confidence to re-launch her company.

Furstenberg re-launched her company in 1997, and re-introduced the wrap dress, which gained traction with an entirely new generation of women. In 1998, she published her business memoir, Diane: A Signature Life. In 2004, she introduced the DVF by H. Stern fine jewelry collection, and launched scarves and beachwear. In 2006, she was elected as President of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, a position she still holds today. In 2008, she received a star on Seventh Avenue's Fashion Walk of Fame.

In 2009, Michelle Obama wore the DVF signature Chain Link print wrap dress on The Official White House Christmas Card. That same year, a large-scale retrospective exhibition entitled "Diane von Furstenberg: Journey of a Dress" opened at the Manezh, one of Moscow's largest public exhibition spaces. The show was curated by Andre Leon Talley and attracted a lot of media attention. In 2010, the exhibition traveled to São Paulo, and in 2011, to the Pace Gallery in Beijing.

In 2010, von Furstenberg was awarded a Gold Medal at the annual Queen Sofia Spanish Institute Gold Medal Gala. In 2011, DVF introduced a home collection as well as a signature fragrance, DIANE.

In 2012, she launched her first children’s collection with GapKids and a denim collaboration with CURRENT/ELLIOTT.

Her clothes have been worn by many celebrities including Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Beckinsale, Madonna, Tina Brown, Jessica Alba, Susan Sarandon and Jennifer Lopez. Google Glass made its New York Fashion Week Debut at the designer's Spring 2013 fashion show.

In 2014, she joined the Ban Bossy campaign as a spokesperson advocating leadership roles for girls.

Philanthropy

Furstenberg is a director of The Diller – von Furstenberg Family Foundation, which provides support to non-profit organizations in the area of community building, education, human rights, arts, health and the environment. The foundation supports the "DVF Awards", presented annually to four women who display leadership, strength, and courage in their commitment to women's causes, and in 2011, the foundation made a $20 million commitment to the High Line.

Furstenberg sits on the board of Vital Voices, a women’s leadership organization, and served as one of the project chairs for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's review of the future of NYC's Fashion industry, which was prepared by NYCEDC.

In 2016, Furstenberg designed shirts for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Pop culture

Furstenberg is referred to in Dolly Parton's 1981 song "Working Girl". In 2014, Ovation TV featured the The Fashion Fund, a documentary about the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund competition. Furstenberg starred alongside Anna Wintour in the program.

In 2014, the E! network aired the first season of reality show House of DVF. Contestants on the show performed various tasks and challenges in the hopes of becoming a global brand ambassador for Diane von Furstenberg. The show has since returned for a second season.

Marriages and issue

At university, when she was 18, she met Prince Egon of Fürstenberg, the elder son of Prince Tassilo zu Fürstenberg, a German Roman Catholic prince, and his first wife, Clara Agnelli, an heiress to the Fiat automotive fortune and member of the Italian nobility. Married in 1969, the couple had two children, Prince Alexander, and Princess Tatiana, who were born in New York City. She is now the grandmother of four, including Princess Talita.

The Fürstenbergs' marriage, although unpopular with the groom's family because of the bride's Jewish ethnicity, was considered dynastic, and on her marriage she became Her Serene Highness Princess Diane of Fürstenberg. However, she lost any claim to the title following her divorce and her 2001 remarriage.

In 2001, she married American media mogul Barry Diller.

Titles and styles

Published works