Speaker 1: Diane von Furstenberg may be best known to women around
Speaker 1: the world as the creator of the iconic rap dress,
Speaker 1: but in addition to running her fashion company, she's been
Speaker 1: deeply involved in philanthropy. With her husband Barry Diller, she
Speaker 1: helped to create the high Line and also Little Island
Speaker 1: on the West Side of New York. She's also now
Speaker 1: leading the effort to raise money for the Ellis Island Foundation.
Speaker 1: Had a chance to sit down with her recently to
Speaker 1: talk about her extraordinary life and her dedication to philanthropy
Speaker 1: and to her family. So let me ask you about
Speaker 1: something I can say I'm not an expert on which
Speaker 1: is fashion. Nobody's ever considered me a fashion plate. You
Speaker 1: invented something called the rap dress about forty plus years ago,
Speaker 1: almost fifty years, and it's one of the most famous
Speaker 1: designs in the last fifty years, and women are still
Speaker 1: wearing it. So tell me where you surprised that after
Speaker 1: almost fifty years, women are still wearing the same design.
Speaker 1: Obviously different dress, but same design as something that was
Speaker 1: popular almost fifty years ago. Yeah, I mean it's you know,
Speaker 1: people say I created the rap dress, which is true,
Speaker 1: but really the rap dress created me because because of
Speaker 1: that dress, I became the woman I wanted to be.
Speaker 1: I became independent. I by being an independent it paid
Speaker 1: for my children education, It paid for my house in
Speaker 1: the country, paid for my apartment. So it made me free,
Speaker 1: and it made me liberated. And it was the time
Speaker 1: of the women's liberation. So and because it was a dress,
Speaker 1: the more confident I became, and the more the more
Speaker 1: confidence I was, I was passing on this confidence to
Speaker 1: other women through this little dress that I would go
Speaker 1: around and wrap around women's bodies. And so in a
Speaker 1: sense now that I look back that I'm an older
Speaker 1: woman and so on I looked back, it's almost like
Speaker 1: I was a conduit, you know, I was a conduit
Speaker 1: for confidence for many generations of women. So how long
Speaker 1: did it take to develop the rap dress? Was it
Speaker 1: something that came to you like that or was it
Speaker 1: many years? How did it develop? When I was twenty,
Speaker 1: I went out of college and I didn't know what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do, but I knew the kind of
Speaker 1: woman I wanted to be. I wanted to be a
Speaker 1: woman in charge. So how which though, is going to
Speaker 1: be my door? So I thought maybe fashion? So at
Speaker 1: first I worked in Paris for a fashion um photographer's agent,
Speaker 1: and that got me wow. I discovered the world of fashion.
Speaker 1: And then I met the father of a friend of
Speaker 1: the broad of my boyfriend whatever in Italy, and he said,
Speaker 1: you know, you should come and discover the other side
Speaker 1: of fashion, where we make fashion. So and I discovered
Speaker 1: how you know all about printing. You know how you
Speaker 1: buy artwork and how you put it in repeat, and
Speaker 1: how you printed, and you worked with the colorist and
Speaker 1: and learned how to do a color palette. So it
Speaker 1: was really a craft. And so I didn't think that
Speaker 1: any of this was going to be useful to me
Speaker 1: at all, but it was very interesting. I then went
Speaker 1: to America for the first time to visit my boyfriend.
Speaker 1: My mother gave me a ticket to go to New
Speaker 1: York and visit him, and I discovered New York and
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it. It was ninety yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe how. I said, I have to come
Speaker 1: back here. And also while I was in New York
Speaker 1: because my my boyfriend then he was a young, very
Speaker 1: attractive prince, so he was very much, you know, in
Speaker 1: demand in New York. He was very good looking and
Speaker 1: because he was in the man and I came as
Speaker 1: his girl friend. All the designer wanted to lend me
Speaker 1: close and blah blah blah, and and so while I
Speaker 1: was here here, I mean I stayed about a month.
Speaker 1: I think I discovered so much. I discovered New York.
Speaker 1: I discovered all these young designers. And when I went back,
Speaker 1: all I could think about is how do I get
Speaker 1: back to New York? How do I get back to
Speaker 1: New And when I went back to work in the factory,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I looked at everything there and
Speaker 1: I said, oh, there is my door. There's an opportunity.
Speaker 1: Let me try to make some easy, easy, little dresses
Speaker 1: that I can then go and sell in America. And
Speaker 1: that's how I started. So I would stay late at
Speaker 1: night with a pattern maker and make some samples and
Speaker 1: so on. But for those who are watching, who may
Speaker 1: not be fashion experts, what exactly is a rap drop?
Speaker 1: You know what was so unique about you wrap your body?
Speaker 1: So it started from these little sweaters that ballerinas where
Speaker 1: you know when they when they get cold, and it's
Speaker 1: it's it's wrapped. It's like a kimono, right again, Japanese
Speaker 1: kimono but it's very tight. And because it was jersey,
Speaker 1: you wrap it very tight. That was the difference. And
Speaker 1: it was just a rap dress and it was printed
Speaker 1: because I was in this print factory, so it was
Speaker 1: a wrapped first. It was a wraptop with a rap
Speaker 1: with a skirt, and it did really well, and then
Speaker 1: I said, I've got to turn it into a dress,
Speaker 1: and then it became addressed. And before I knew, at
Speaker 1: the age of twenty six, I was making twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand rab dresses a week. And you became very famous,
Speaker 1: and I became n There's a story that Newsweek was
Speaker 1: going to put Gerald Ford President Night's States on the
Speaker 1: cover and they for winning his primary. Yes, but then
Speaker 1: I discovered that it was the month of March, and
Speaker 1: the months of March is usually when they want subscription renewals,
Speaker 1: and so they would think that maybe I would be
Speaker 1: but atractive woman might be better. Okay, so let's go
Speaker 1: back a moment um. You grew up in what country, Belgium?
Speaker 1: And your mother was a survivor of of Auschwitz? Is
Speaker 1: that right? Yes? And how did she survive Auschwitz? He
Speaker 1: weighed only fifty nine pounds when she came. How do
Speaker 1: you survive. I don't know, I don't know. I mean
Speaker 1: very very, very few people survived. She survived. She was
Speaker 1: twenty two. I mean she got arrested, she was one.
Speaker 1: She stayed, she stayed fourteen months, um and she she
Speaker 1: got she really got arrested very late. It was May
Speaker 1: forty four. And but she worked while she was there.
Speaker 1: She worked at the group factory. So while you know,
Speaker 1: when you were working, they wouldn't kill you. So that
Speaker 1: that's the first thing. And then after that there was
Speaker 1: the famous death March, and they went and they walked
Speaker 1: and to another camp, Ravens Brook. A lot of people
Speaker 1: died on the march. She thought she was going to
Speaker 1: die on the march, but she didn't. And then after that,
Speaker 1: as they were losing the war, they pushed back more
Speaker 1: and and then she ended up in another camp. And
Speaker 1: then one day the Germans had gone, then the Russian
Speaker 1: came and raped every girl and uh, and then after
Speaker 1: that the Americans arrived. Now, your mother had a tattoo
Speaker 1: that Alschwitz two. So do you ever asked her when
Speaker 1: you were a little what? Yeah? She everybody asked. And
Speaker 1: then she had removed she had one number and then
Speaker 1: crossed and then the number. I mean, for me, it
Speaker 1: was you know, it wasn't odd because I had always
Speaker 1: seen it like that. I knew she had been to
Speaker 1: the camp. I mean, you know, there was a little
Speaker 1: talk about it, but she shielded me from it all
Speaker 1: without making it a big mystery. So you come to
Speaker 1: New York. You're the queen of New York because you're
Speaker 1: the princess of New York is you're very young, you're
Speaker 1: in your twenties, You're made a lot of money by
Speaker 1: any normal standards, and you're the queen of the fashion world. Right,
Speaker 1: let's say, right, so how do you top that? There
Speaker 1: had no such thing as going to the top, top
Speaker 1: top and continuing to go to the top. Also, I
Speaker 1: think it's really important. I always make a point to
Speaker 1: tell people that sometimes when you are at the very top,
Speaker 1: that that that time I was on the cover of
Speaker 1: Newsweek and on the front page of the World Street Journal,
Speaker 1: and everybody was buying my dresses, and I was acclaimed
Speaker 1: as the big success. I myself already knew that things
Speaker 1: were so easy because in the way I had saturated
Speaker 1: the market. You know, everybody had a rap dress and
Speaker 1: nobody needed to buy another rap dress. Everybody had many
Speaker 1: rap dresses. Okay, so did your business go down every Yes?
Speaker 1: Then I licensed that, you know, and uh, and then
Speaker 1: I like, you know, I mean, life is like it's
Speaker 1: you know, you go as you go. So I licensed
Speaker 1: my dress business to a company that I thought had
Speaker 1: more experience than I did, and they continued to develop it,
Speaker 1: and I decided, now I'm going to be a studo
Speaker 1: and I started acus Many company. But while you were
Speaker 1: doing that, you led the very interesting life of a
Speaker 1: socialite in the seventies in New York. You're meeting with
Speaker 1: Andy Warhol and other people. What was that life? Like?
Speaker 1: Everybody famous who was young was a friend of yours.
Speaker 1: New York City in the seventies was many things. For
Speaker 1: one thing, it was very dirty, it was very dangerous,
Speaker 1: and it was very cheap, and therefore a lot of
Speaker 1: artists were here. It was very exciting time. It was
Speaker 1: a time that people wanted freedom. We we thought our
Speaker 1: generations ought we invented freedom, which of course we didn't. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it was it was fun and there were a
Speaker 1: lot of creative people, and Andy Waholl was everywhere, and
Speaker 1: there was a lot of other people and and it
Speaker 1: was fun. But I mean, it's always fun when you're young.
Speaker 1: So Andy Warhol said, hey, I'll paint the picture of you.
Speaker 1: Was that happening a lot? Uh? Andy Warholl did my
Speaker 1: first portrait one night, very late in the anybody was
Speaker 1: looking for a white wall because he would take a
Speaker 1: polaroid and then he would use the polaroid and and
Speaker 1: and and paint from there and then and he was
Speaker 1: he needed a white wall. And in my office, in
Speaker 1: my home, they had no white wall. So we went
Speaker 1: the kitchen and because the white wall in my kitchen
Speaker 1: was so tiny, I lifted my arm and that was
Speaker 1: the first time he painted me. And then he painted
Speaker 1: me later for a show that he was planning to
Speaker 1: do in the eighties called Beauties. And did he did
Speaker 1: he give you the paintings or he he gave me? Okay,
Speaker 1: the first one he gave me one, I bought two.
Speaker 1: The second time he gave me one, I bought none.
Speaker 1: And when he died, I bought them all. So let
Speaker 1: me ask you. Your business is moving forward. You're in
Speaker 1: the cosmetics business, You're getting another businesses fragrance and other things.
Speaker 1: Life sounds like it's great. Everything is going well. Did
Speaker 1: at some point all the businesses go down, and I
Speaker 1: for a whilington wasn't so good? Were they always ups
Speaker 1: and down and ups and down? I had the first
Speaker 1: phase of my life is very much American dream. Okay,
Speaker 1: I lived a true American dream. Really. I was young,
Speaker 1: I was inexperience, and I became very successful after that.
Speaker 1: You know, I had difficulties. I had enough, and then
Speaker 1: finally I ended up selling the cosmetic and uh. And
Speaker 1: then of course by then my children are teenagers, so
Speaker 1: they went to board in school. At that time I decided,
Speaker 1: I went back to Europe. I lived in Paris for
Speaker 1: a few years, and then I came back here and
Speaker 1: then I decided. And then by then my brand was
Speaker 1: really wow. It was like bad. It was in discount
Speaker 1: stores and everybody had done everything. And that was difficult.
Speaker 1: That was a difficult time for me to see because
Speaker 1: everything until then was great and wonderful. Even when it
Speaker 1: wasn't great and wonderful, it was still exciting. But then
Speaker 1: coming back, I mean and seeing the brand and the
Speaker 1: people who were in charge of the brand, and they
Speaker 1: didn't care. I mean, there was no spirit, there was
Speaker 1: no there was no messenging, there was no nothing. It
Speaker 1: was that was really difficult, and as I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's as a result of that, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, I also had a cancer. I had a
Speaker 1: cancer at the at the at the bottom, at the
Speaker 1: base of my tongue, and uh, and I think it
Speaker 1: has something to do with the fact that I couldn't
Speaker 1: express myself anyway. So I dealt with that, and I
Speaker 1: also then dealt with taking back my name and starting again.
Speaker 1: You started all over the company now I guess known
Speaker 1: as DVF your initials, right, And so that company then
Speaker 1: began to recreate some of the things you've done before,
Speaker 1: including the rap dress, and it turned out the rap
Speaker 1: dress was more popular than even had been before practically,
Speaker 1: So was that a surprise to you that the rap
Speaker 1: dress was still so popular? You know, when it's your life,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's just one day after another
Speaker 1: day after another day. It's only when you look back
Speaker 1: that you are surprised. When you like back that you
Speaker 1: have time to say, oh, that was great. When you're
Speaker 1: living it, you just you know, survive. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: a young woman, two children. I separated so quickly from
Speaker 1: my husband, and then you know, there's a lot to
Speaker 1: do running a company. Um, you know, so I didn't
Speaker 1: have the time to think, I'm I surprised and I
Speaker 1: what what does DVF now do? Well? Actually, DVF as
Speaker 1: has been many, many, many products over the years after
Speaker 1: COVID and after all of the change. You know, COVID
Speaker 1: was also a moment of resecting, right, So I I
Speaker 1: don't want to take it. I can't say take advantage
Speaker 1: of something as negative as COVID, but we were forced
Speaker 1: to look at the business model and reset the business
Speaker 1: model because under COVID, people weren't going out in fashions, right,
Speaker 1: they weren't wearing fancy But also stores were closed, we
Speaker 1: had to close. So, I mean it's a lot of
Speaker 1: different things at the same time. And of course the
Speaker 1: business online and so it was it was a moment
Speaker 1: to reset. So how was the business today, Well, it's
Speaker 1: being resetted and it's actually very interesting. You know. I'm
Speaker 1: a very positive person. My mother, my mother was a survivor, right,
Speaker 1: so as a survivor, life is what matters, right As
Speaker 1: as a daughter of a survivor. The minute I was born,
Speaker 1: I mean she wasn't supposed to survive. I wasn't supposed
Speaker 1: to be born, and yet I was born, So I
Speaker 1: realized that the moment of my birth was already a victory.
Speaker 1: So anything that happened after that was a plus. So
Speaker 1: the company you run today is a privately own company.
Speaker 1: Have you ever thought of taking your company public? No?
Speaker 1: But you know right now it was important for me.
Speaker 1: Now is the legacy moment of my life. Right now
Speaker 1: is the time that you look back at your life
Speaker 1: and you I'm happy to see that somehow it's coherent.
Speaker 1: I was born on New Year's Eve, so every year
Speaker 1: I make resolution, so I divine my life in three columns.
Speaker 1: One is my family, one is my business, and my
Speaker 1: my my my brand, and one is me. So looking
Speaker 1: back now in my life, I look at my family.
Speaker 1: You know, my two children, my five grandchildren, and I'm
Speaker 1: very proud of them. I'm very proud of who they are.
Speaker 1: I'm proud of the people they are. I'm proud that
Speaker 1: they are not banal, they are fun, they're interesting, they're generous,
Speaker 1: and they care. Then there's my brand. So there also
Speaker 1: I had to reset the brand and make sure it
Speaker 1: was closed because sometimes when you grow, you lose your
Speaker 1: initial spirit, your initial reason to be, and then the
Speaker 1: third part me is about the impact is about today
Speaker 1: using all the things I have, my voice, my experiences,
Speaker 1: my knowledge, my memories, my experiences, my resources, and using
Speaker 1: that in order to make other women be the woman
Speaker 1: they want to be. Do you think people who are
Speaker 1: CEO should speak out on public issues if they think
Speaker 1: that something bad is happening or something good is happening.
Speaker 1: Do you like to speak out on public issues? I
Speaker 1: I like to speak in general. I speak to myself
Speaker 1: and I like to speak and I like to use Yeah.
Speaker 1: I do believe. I think words are very powerful and
Speaker 1: I think that if you have a voice, you should speak. Yes.
Speaker 1: So from reading your books, and you've written eight books,
Speaker 1: I think it is it's a lot of books. Um.
Speaker 1: You um said in one of the books that what
Speaker 1: you wanted to do was to live a man's life
Speaker 1: and a woman's body. What you meant by that was
Speaker 1: what oh? Men? By that mean that I wanted to
Speaker 1: be able to do everything a man does and yet
Speaker 1: being enjoying being a woman. Yeah, because men could start
Speaker 1: businesses and could do other things that traditionally didn't do. Yes,
Speaker 1: so men can call a woman and I mean doing
Speaker 1: all kinds of things. So why can't a woman do that?
Speaker 1: That was the most important thing for me, to be
Speaker 1: a liberated woman. But I was part of that generation
Speaker 1: as a feminist. You will admire a Gloria Steinem. Gloria
Speaker 1: Steinem for me as a feminist, she was my idol.
Speaker 1: She was my idol. Now she's a friend and and
Speaker 1: but and I remember she created that magazine called ms
Speaker 1: MS and which means you, we're not either miss or missus.
Speaker 1: And I remember when I separated and then eventually divorced
Speaker 1: from my husband, the Prince. I joked and I said,
Speaker 1: I gave up. So when her husband separated, that's a
Speaker 1: long time ago, a long time ago. And you married
Speaker 1: Barry Diller. After I separated from my the father my children,
Speaker 1: I met Barry and we fell in love and we
Speaker 1: were together for five years. But I guess that again,
Speaker 1: it was the seventies and it was important for me
Speaker 1: to experience. And so we separated, and I, you know,
Speaker 1: I lived my life, but Barry and I we kept
Speaker 1: very close. I also kept very close to my first husband,
Speaker 1: and somehow Barry and I think we both knew somehow
Speaker 1: at some point we would end up together. And then
Speaker 1: about twenty years ago, yeah, twenty years ago. Um, we
Speaker 1: got married, okay, and both of you together have been
Speaker 1: extracted freely successful in the business world and also in
Speaker 1: the philanthropy world. Let me ask you about your philanthropy
Speaker 1: for a moment. You and your husband helped to create
Speaker 1: the Highline. Well, when I started the company again in
Speaker 1: when I was I came here, n uh, I say,
Speaker 1: why am I runting those expensive offices uptown? Let me
Speaker 1: buy a little building downtown. And I came in this neighborhood,
Speaker 1: meetback and full of butchers. They were only butchers. And
Speaker 1: I bought a little carriage house and I decided to
Speaker 1: make that my showroom and my office. And everybody said,
Speaker 1: what are you doing there? Who wants to go and
Speaker 1: work there? Smelled so bad, blah blah blah. But I
Speaker 1: did it anyway. And then when you moved to a
Speaker 1: new neighborhood, you meet your neighbors. And I met these
Speaker 1: two young guys who had a dream. And the dream
Speaker 1: was to transform this elevated railroad railway that went from
Speaker 1: Gunsberg all the way to Dravid Center. It was abandoned,
Speaker 1: and to turn it into a park. And it was
Speaker 1: going to be knocked down Anyway, those two guys had
Speaker 1: this dream and they saw my studio and they said,
Speaker 1: you mind, you think you could do it? We could
Speaker 1: have We could do a fundraising in your studio. And
Speaker 1: that's how my relationship with the neighborhood and where the
Speaker 1: highlights started. For one thing, we made it, we turn
Speaker 1: this neighborhood into m historical preservation. Then somehow we turned convinced.
Speaker 1: We turned around the high Line, and it was very
Speaker 1: difficult because all the developers wanted the real estate. Those
Speaker 1: same developers, by by the way, now are so proud
Speaker 1: to be on the high Line. The high Line became
Speaker 1: the number one destination for two tourists. You are now
Speaker 1: involved in helping to repair the others island buildings. Is
Speaker 1: that right? Well? Yes, first I was. I'm on the
Speaker 1: board of and of the foundation of the Statue of
Speaker 1: Liberty Ellis Island, and the first thing I did was
Speaker 1: raised money for to create the museum form the Statue
Speaker 1: of Liberty. So I got very close to her, Lady Liberty.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do it. I really didn't want
Speaker 1: to say if I go on another board, my husband
Speaker 1: would be so upset. And then he read my book
Speaker 1: The Man who wanted to get me. And in my
Speaker 1: book he read that my mother had written me a
Speaker 1: note saying, God saved me so that I can give
Speaker 1: your life. By giving you life, you gave me my
Speaker 1: life back. You are therefore my torture of freedom. So
Speaker 1: he underlined that and he said, you see, you've got
Speaker 1: to come and help the statue of liberty. So the
Speaker 1: hardest thing in life, I've often said is to be happy.
Speaker 1: But you seemed like a very happy person. It's like nature,
Speaker 1: nothing ever stopped, so you could be super happy one
Speaker 1: minute and then something happens. So it's just it's just
Speaker 1: living is the joy of life. For any young woman
Speaker 1: that's watching this wants to be the next Diana von Fursterburg,
Speaker 1: what would you recommend? I think the most important thing
Speaker 1: in life is the relationship you have with yourself. Once
Speaker 1: you have a good relationship with yourself, any other relationship
Speaker 1: is a plus and not the most And the second
Speaker 1: advice is to be as true to yourself as you
Speaker 1: possibly can. And it's not easy, and you have to
Speaker 1: accept and own things you may not like. But the
Speaker 1: more you could be you, the happier you would be.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
Speaker 1: can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen