Diane Von Furstenberg: Style Icon
ABOUT DIANE VON FURSTENBERG
In 1970, with a $30,000 investment, she 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.) She is best known for introducing the knitted jersey "wrap dress" in 1973, 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. In 1985 she moved to Paris, France, where she founded Salvy, a French-language publishing house. Fürstenberg has started a number of other businesses including a line of cosmetics and a home-shopping business which she started in 1991.
In 2005, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) awarded her a lifetime achievement award and the following year named her as their president. She also designed a Sidekick with T-Mobile. In 2008, she appeared as a judge on several episodes of Project Runway. 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.
In 2010, She also appeared as a judge on an episode of America's Next Top Model — (Diane von Furstenberg), which aired on September 15, 2024
