As Diane von Furstenberg settled back in her chair and mesmerized the audience with her storytelling, the Tribeca X Awards, which recognize creatives for storytelling, really took off. Guests at the awards ceremony enjoyed a charming chat between the designer and late-night host and comedian Seth Meyers.
When the organizers considered who to bring to the stage with the fashion designer, they turned to artificial intelligence (AI). This was suggested by Myers, who also happens to be von Fürstenberg’s friend and neighbor. “Yet we’re fighting the writers’ strike against AI,” Myers joked, referring to the standoff between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
“How I was born defines me,” began von Furstenberg, whose mother, who escaped the concentration camps and weighed just 49 pounds, was told by doctors not to have children. Warnings that she might die or that the child would not be born normally went unheeded. “But I wasn’t normal. My birth was a triumph over misery,” says the designer.
Brand Narratives by Diane von Furstenberg
The designer believes that she would never lose the upper hand because of these circumstances. Indeed, her brand has had its ups and downs, from the resounding success of their wrap dress launched in 1974, to selling their brand and losing their name just a decade later, to starting over in 1998 and celebrating the wrap dress’s 50th birthday the next year . “I didn’t realize how much of my identity was tied to my brand,” said von Furstenberg. “I may have created the wrap dress, but actually the wrap dress created me.”
The simple dress, often made of colorfully printed jersey, which plays around the body, crosses in the chest area and fits at the waist, still finds many customers, especially among younger women, which the designer is very happy about. You can tell that she puts herself in the shoes of her customers and has the impression that she has their backs. Starting out at 26 with nothing but a suitcase full of patterns, the designer said, “I wanted to be a woman in charge, a woman who lives a man’s life but is in a woman’s body.” Describing hers Career as a constant reinvention of herself, and that her image and the clothes she designed, which according to the US magazine Forbes had already sold a million copies by 1976, served as a vehicle. “I sold confidence,” she said.
She bluntly refers to the dress as a uniform and talks less about creating fashionable moments and more about making women feel beautiful. “I’ve always been a feminist and encourage every woman to be a badass,” said the designer. She crossed her elegant stockinged legs again, drawing Myers’ admiration.
In today’s corporate culture, the acclaimed designer, who is also a former chair of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, is almost disconcerting about this kind of openness. But it is this trait that has allowed her to grow her career over the past 50 years. She sold her clothes on QVC when it was considered the death knell for an upscale brand; she opened a shop in New York’s Meatpacking District “when there were still a lot of butchers there,” adding with a wink, “Maybe they still are, but they’re a different breed of butcher.” That pioneering spirit is just one of the facets of her personality to be explored in the Hulu documentary currently being filmed about her.
In her signature intonation, which bears traces of her Belgian accent, she smiled slyly, gazing knowingly at the audience while maintaining a feline grace as she slid further down in her chair. She mentioned that she has always seen herself as a mother of three children: her son, her daughter and her brand. This prompted her to recall a story that she found very amusing and shared with the audience: “My son describes my brand as the son who goes into rehab and comes out. Sometimes we’re all so proud that he’s doing so well, and a few years later he does whatever he can to take his own life.” The audience erupted in laughter. Fifty years of stories in one dress.
This translated post previously appeared on FashionUnited.com