Diane von Fürstenberg
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| Diane von Fürstenberg | |
 von Fürstenberg at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival |
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| Born | Diane Simone Michelle Halfin December 31, 1946 Brussels, Belgium |
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| Occupation | American fashion designer |
Diane von Fürstenberg (born Diane Simone Michelle Halfin on December 31, 1946, Brussels, Belgium) is a fashion designer best known for her hallmark wrap dress.
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[edit] Birth and education
Diane Simone Michelle Halfin was born into an upper-middle class Jewish household. Her father was Russian-born Leon Halfin, who spent World War II in Switzerland, and her mother was Greek-born Liliane Nahmias, who was a Holocaust survivor. She studied economics at the University of Geneva in Switzerland.
[edit] Marriages
At university, when she was 18, she met Prince Egon of Fürstenberg, the elder son of a German prince and his first wife, an heiress to the Fiat automotive fortune. Married in 1969 and divorced three years later, the couple had two children, Prince Alexandre (born six months after their wedding)[1] and Princess Tatiana, who were born in New York City. She is now the grandmother of three children. The Fürstenbergs' marriage, though not popular with the groom's family because of the bride's religion, was considered dynastic, and Diane became Princess Diane of Fürstenberg at the time of the wedding, according to the Genealogisches Handbuch Des Adels: Fürstliche Häuser [2] According to Bernardine Morris's article in The New York Times, Diane von Fürstenberg, then separated from her first husband, had dropped her title from use in her professional life.[3]
At the beginning of the eighties, she had an affair with Alain Elkann, Margherita Agnelli's ex-husband, then an ex-cousin of her own ex-husband. From those days, she kept an excellent relationship with his children, Jaki, Lapo and Ginevra Elkann.
In 2001, she married American media mogul Barry Diller, with whom she had been involved, off and on, since the 1970s.[1] In 2002, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
[edit] Career
As Fürstenberg once explained, "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."[1] In 1970, with a $30,000 investment, she began designing women's clothes. (Her former husband became a fashion designer, too, launching his career in 1974.)[4] She is best known for introducing the knitted jersey "wrap dress" in 1973, an example of which, due to its important influence on women's fashion, is in the collection of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[5]
Fürstenberg has started a number of successful businesses including a line of cosmetics and has ventured into the home-shopping business, which she started in 1991. In 1985 she moved to Paris, France where she founded Salvy, a French-language publishing house. Upon the death of artist Lowell Nesbitt in 1993 Diane von Fürstenberg purchased Nesbitt's studio and residence at 389 West 12th Street, the site of a former police stable that Nesbitt had renovated, which measured in excess of 12,500 square feet. This studio and living space, acting as one of the premier examples in New York City during the 1970's and 80's included an indoor swimming pool, a four story atrium and a roof top entertainment area; Nesbitt labeled the facility "The Old Stable." The Lowell Nesbitt studio became a popular gathering place for major art world figures, celebrities and dignitaries including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Robert Motherwell, Larry Rivers and James Rosenquist. This monumental space that Nesbitt created resulted in feature articles about the facility in the New York Times, the Washington Post and Architectural Digest Magazine in the late 1970s. Diane von Fürstenberg used the structure until the early 2000’s as her studio and residence when it was sold and demolished to make space for a new high-rise building. She now operates DVF Studio at 874 Washington Street in New York City where she currently creates a line of high-end women's apparel which is only offered in stores such as Bergdorf Goodman, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Neiman Marcus.
In 1997, after more than a decade, Fürstenberg successfully relaunched her high-end line. She published her memoirs, "Diane: A Signature Life" (Simon & Schuster; 1998). In 2005, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) awarded her a lifetime achievement award.[6] In 2006, she was named president of the CFDA. She also teamed with T-Mobile to design a Limited Edition Sidekick 3.[7] In 2008, she appeared as a judge on several episodes of Project Runway. DVF's major competitor is Carmen Marc Valvo.
Professionally and personally, she uses von with her surname instead of the usual zu used by the House of Fürstenberg (the latter term is rarely encountered outside of Europe). As her advertising campaigns and company letterhead indicate, she also prefers to spell her surname with no umlaut. Earlier in her career however, until the late 1990s, her company's labels included either an umlaut or a squiggle in its place.
Ms. von Fürstenberg is a recipient of The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Maynard, Joyce. "The Princess Who is Everywhere", The New York Times, 16 February 1977
- ^ Genealogisches Handbuch Des Adels: Fürstliche Häuser(C. A. Starke Verlag, 1991), p. 261.
- ^ Morris, Bernardine. "Basic Dresses in Sexy Prints And Washable" The New York Times, 18 April 1975
- ^ Lawrence Van Gelder, "A Princely Designer Gets It All Together for Fashionable Men", The New York Times, 21 January 1976
- ^ "Diane Von Furstenberg: Wrap dress (1997.487)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–.(October 2006)
- ^ Past Winners CFDA.com Council of Fashion Designers of America
- ^ Limited Edition T-Mobile Sidekicks Debut; Diane von Furstenberg and L-R-G Help Create Iconic Devices 12 October 2006
[edit] External links
- Diane von Fürstenberg Online
- Interview with Newsweek magazine
- Diane von Fürstenberg collections at style.com
- American Express and Fashion, JCReport.com
