Diane von Furstenberg has become jet-set fashion personified, something which many a designer has tried to emulate since Furstenberg confidently staked her claim on it in the early seventies, but nary has a single one actually been able to capture it. What Furstenberg did was different, everlasting, and while I should celebrate the ultra-vixen design force as being jet-set fashion personified, not becoming it, even she would probably admit that it doesn’t happen overnight.
Nonchalant glamour, her favoured forte and something she has drawn on since the somewhat laissez-faire decade that made her , takes work, just consider that President of the CFDA, now well on her way to 70 years of age, has withheld an oh-so current position in the industry to this day. Whilst she may forever belong to a time when Rothschilds and Rockerfellers would hold extravagant balls in Venice and Monaco to rub shoulders and clink Bulgari jewellery with other café society peers, DVF is one marvellously modern maiden.
It was the creativity of expression that exuded from said society of the late sixties and early seventies that made way for the dress that would change it all, the dress that would start as one small wrap for Diane and go on to become one large rapture for womankind, the wrap dress.
In 1970 Diana Vreeland exclaimed “This is what we need. We hope to do something very nice for you” and by 1976, it had sold millions; Vogue had done something very, very nice for Diane. The seed of what is today a worldwide fashion house, a suitcase of jersey dresses, has gone on to symbolize not only female power and freedom to an entire generation, but choice, in one’s career and in their relationship, Diane made it clear that if you didn’t actually have feeling for a man, he could be a goner without a second thought. Empowering woman is far too often a hollow choice phrase that gets thrown around this way and that in fashion nowadays; the wrap dress proved that all it takes however is a sexy yet practical design, accented of course with eye-popping print.
When the recent news that the Belgium born, one-time Her Serene Highness Princess Diane of Fürstenberg – following a brief marriage into German nobility in the late sixties, was bringing the global project Journey of a Dress to London to celebrate 40 years of DVF, we instantly became wrapped up in the oncoming glitz of it all. More than any other designer, her beau monde design life has been quite the journey and one that we couldn’t help but track at this moment in her ongoing forward propulsion.
Taking over the Philips Gallery in London’s Mayfair for her stay in the United Kingdom, last week’s launch saw the jet-set of yesteryear, from Bianca Jagger to Jan De Villeneuve and today’s new-age fashion set, from Ellie Goulding to Laura Bailey and Poppy Delevingne, come together to raise a glass of the finest champers to the wrap. As Diane, with her global luxury lifestyle brand in tow, stopped off in London it was rumoured that there was all but more in the works and we would be the first to know about it.
In four major developments, it was revealed that Diane was to launch her latest memoir The Woman I Wanted To Be alongside yet another publication, Journey of A Dress, her latest coffee table pressing, and is also soon to launch her brand new docu-series on E! Entertainment, House of DVF, in which young fashion industry hopefuls, will be mentored by Diane herself to become the next DVF brand ambassador. Above all else however, Diane’s latest landmark career highlights have also coincided with a special issue of WWD Milestone, which looks exclusively at the incredible career forged by a designer that is first and foremost an inimitable woman.
You may ask, why now? We say, why not always. This is a woman who has never been anything but who she’s wanted to be and in our times of increasing sociological unrest in the gender playing field, Diane’s story is more appropriate than ever to commemorate. We commend the female force for never looking back following the relaunch that came after a decade-long hiatus in 1997, being a luxury marketplace mainstay in over 55 countries worldwide and becoming dubbed the most powerful woman in fashion by Forbes is no mean feat after all.
She may be the first person to admit that whatever she does in life will never go beyond the accolades that the wrap dress have afforded, but if it takes a woman bold enough to profess “Feel like a woman. Wear a dress” and move mountains with just that handful of syllables, this is a woman who will forever warrant a salute from womankind.
by Liam Feltham
Images courtesy of Diane von Furstenberg and Style.com
The Woman I Wanted To Be is published by Simon & Schuster and is available now.
Journey of a Dress by Diane von Furstenberg, edited by Bill Katz with an introduction by Holly Brubach is available later this month.
House of DVF premiered on US E! last week and can be seen on the channel throughout the month.