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• 2009 by Hearst Communications Inc

  Par shyxiao dans Accueil le 29 Mars 2010 à 03:50

  2009 by Hearst Communications Inc
  
  

  She has not just survived but thrived. Design legend Diane von Furstenberg has lived a lot and learned a lot. Now she shares a lot -- about men, money, family, fashion and passion.

  PHOTOGRAPHS BY LORENZO AGIUS

  STYLED BY KATE DIMMOCK

  SOME FASHION designers create with real women in mind; others discount tiffany up imaginary creatures to inspire them. All Diane von Furstenberg has to do is draw on her own extraordinary history.

  [Photograph]: Still glamorous, still gutsy: DVF at sixty-two, almost forty years after her wrap dresses made her famous. Diane von Furstenberg silk-jersey Giselle dress ($1,800) and heels ($360), 646-486-4800. Diane von Furstenberg by H. Stern 18k-gold, rock-crystal and diamond earrings ($5,900) and 18k-gold bracelet ($16,000), 800-7-HSTERN. Her own rings.

  At her spring show during New York Fashion Week, in Bryant Park, von Furstenberg's Rock Goddess collection featured flirty, floaty dresses in a shimmering rainbow of luscious colors that critics hailed as "seductive" and "optimistic" -- a joyful antidote to parlous times. The stars in the front row were discount Tiffany Bangles fabulous: few celebrities could equal Uma Thurman or Jennifer Lopez for soap-opera-worthy lives filled with passion and drama.

  And yet when it came to megawatt glamour, the woman of the hour outshone everybody else. It's hard to think of anyone more seductive and optimistic than von Furstenberg herself, and even the most over-the-top biography pales next to the roller-coaster ride of her own life.

  [Photograph]: Her face became iconic after Andy Warhol painted her portrait in discount Tiffany Bracelets '70s -- but von Furstenberg claims not to mind getting older. "It's nice to age. I feel I have earned that stature." Diane von Furstenberg matte-jersey Ayana dress ($365) and heels ($265), 646-486-4800. Diane von Furstenberg by H. Stern 18k-gold hoop earrings ($1,500) and bracelet ($16,000), 800-7-HSTERN. Her own rings. Hair by Ted Gibson for Jed Root at tedgibsonbeauty.com. Makeup by Fulvia Farolfi for Chanel.
  PAINTING: © 2008 THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS/ARS, NEW YORK

  Von Furstenberg wasn't the only beauty to become a princess by marrying a jet-set aristocrat from one of Europe's wealthiest families. Nor was she the only clever young thing to make a fortune with a brilliant idea and turn herself into an international sensation. And she certainly wasn't the only business powerhouse to suspect that life would be more fun on a beach in paradise -- or to live out that dream for a while.

  There have been other celebrated successes whose luster has faded over time, and von Furstenberg isn't the only smart strategist to stage a comeback and triumph all over again. She's not even the only entrepreneur who was disdained by competitors early in her career but who later won such respect that she discount Tiffany Pendants an industry leader. And she's surely not the only mom to raise two children who adore her, nor the only trophy wife to have married a billionaire the second time around. But to be all of the above and more? Now there's a life for the record books! Wonder Woman herself might envy a story like that.

  So it's entirely appropriate that von Furstenberg's recent holiday collection -- a collaboration with Warner Bros. and DC Comics -- was inspired by Wonder Woman, with a motto to match: "Be the Wonder Woman you can be." A portion of the collection's proceeds went to Vital Voices Global Partnership, a nonprofit foundation that promotes women's economic progress. "I'm so committed to it; they help so many people," von Furstenberg says. "I want to play an important role in helping women all over the world to empower themselves."

  Such philanthropy marks yet another chapter in her remarkable odyssey, which -- like most gorgeous creations -- is the product of an extravagant imagination. "I had fantasies, and I fulfilled my fantasies," von Furstenberg says simply. "I have been so privileged because I have had such an exciting life."

  Casual and relaxed in jeans and a T-shirt, she is curled up on a sofa next to a shocking-pink wall in her New York office, whose eclectic decor ranges from a striking Andy Warhol portrait of the young Diane to a dense wall collage of photographs that include her children, her grandchildren, and both her current husband and her former one. Her office and her Manhattan apartment occupy the upper floors of the building that houses her flagship store, on West 14th Street in the Meatpacking District.

  At sixty-two, von Furstenberg retains only the faintest trace of the accent that's a vestige of her childhood in Belgium. The daughter of a Jewish father and a mother who was part Greek, Diane Halfin began her personal fairy tale in the time-honored fashion, by meeting a prince. As a student at the University of Geneva, she began an affair with Egon von Fürstenberg, the son of an Austrian prince and an heiress to the Fiat fortune. When Diane unexpectedly got pregnant, Egon surprised her with his eagerness to marry.

  Some women hope they'll land a rich husband so they won't "have to" work, but Diane had the opposite reaction. "The reason for my career was to be financially independent -- precisely because I married a prince," she explains. "Egon was very eligible, good-looking; he's a prince; he's an Agnelli. But marriage was not a goal for me at all. When I got pregnant I was absolutely shocked. The last thing I wanted was for people to look at me like, 'She got him!' So then, more than ever, it was important for me to have a career. I knew what kind of woman I wanted to be -- a woman who did not depend on her husband."

  Her fierce commitment to self-sufficiency was shaped by her mother's experience as a Holocaust survivor. "Eighteen months before I was born, my mother was in the camps and weighed forty-nine pounds," von Furstenberg says. "My life was already a miracle the minute I was born. In so many ways I am my mother's vengeance. What she instilled in me was that freedom is the most important thing. How can you be independent if you have to ask your husband or father to pay your bills? They have leverage over you!"

  Von Furstenberg's mother taught her to take control of her own life instead. "She told me, 'Fear is not an option,'" von Furstenberg recalls. "I was afraid of the dark, so she locked me in a closet. I cried for the first ten minutes, and then I stopped crying and thought, 'Why am I afraid of the dark?'"

  Diane was twenty-two when she married Egon; by the time she was twenty-four they had two children and were the toast of two continents as a quintessential glamour couple. Raven-haired and ravishing, Diane possessed "the sultriness of a Biblical temptress," as Town & Country put it in 1972. She left her husband when their children were still young "because he was so terribly unfaithful, but we stayed the best of friends," she says.

  
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