Inflight Magazine of Brussels Airlines

Its a wrap

Belgian-born fashion designer and former princess Diane von Fürstenberg is best known for her trademark wrap dress. Veerle Windels caught up with the energetic designer to talk about her love of Belgium and her summer ’07 collection

When we meet in the midst of New York’s Fashion Week Diane von Fürstenberg is happy, smiling and in her own words “reaping the fruits of lots of hard work.” Sitting in her office, complete with its own stage for impromptu fashion shows and Andy Warhol portraits of the designer, von Fürstenberg is preparing to launch her summer 2007 collection. Labelled “All about Eve”, the collection follows the designer’s ethos of creating fashion that evokes pure femininity. confident,” she says. This could be the tag line of her entire brand; the DNA of DVF (as her brand is known), because that’s what DVF has been about since the designer started out in the 1970s encouraging women to “feel like a woman, wear a dress”.

Diane Halfin, as she was originally named, was born in Brussels in 1946 to a Jewish-Greek mother and Russian father. She earned her well-known surname when she married Prussian prince Egon in 1969 and literally became a princess overnight.

As Mrs von Fürstenberg, the young Diane entered a jet-set life that took her to the four corners of the world, and introduced her to a new social scene and subsequently a meeting in 1970 with Diane Vreeland, the then legendary Editor-in-Chief of American Vogue. Although she had no formal training in the fashion industry, von Fürsternberg did have a strong sense of style and seized the opportunity to show Vreeland one of her designs, a wrap dress with a plunging V-neck. Vreeland saw the potential in the design and encouraged von Fürstenberg to grow her design and make more dresses. So the wrap dress was born and within two years, it had taken America by storm becoming the uniform for both career girls and high-powered women. In the 1970s von Fürstenberg sold over five-million dresses and was pictured on the cover of Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal. In 1976, she was hailed “the most marketable woman since Coco Chanel”.

By the time she was 30, von Fürstenberg had 17 licences and her name emblazoned on make-up, glasses, scarves and jewellery as well as her iconic wrap dresses.

But it was all too much too fast and in the 1980s a burnt out Diane took a break from the world of fashion. “It was the hardest period and I had lost control,” she said in the past referring to the fact she had turned over her name to a number of licensees. And in a reflection of her working life, her personal life had also taken a dip for the worst as she finalised her divorce with Egon.

But having taken time out, Diane re-emerged on the fashion circuit eight years ago when in the mid-1990s her dresses made a comeback, but this time worn by a new generation.

“It wasn’t the mothers that bought the dresses, it was their daughters,” von Fürstenberg says, smiling. And since then the DVF brand has once again gone from strength to strength now selling in 42 countries around the world.

Most recently von Fürstenberg has launched boutiques in Saint Tropez, Tokyo, Paris and Antwerp. “Opening shops is an exciting way to control the image of your brand, and to offer an entire collection to your customers,” she says of her busy schedule and burgeoning portfolio of shop locations.

And when she’s not opening new stores, the designer is unlikely to be found twiddling her thumbs. Like all successful designers, as well as her main line of dresses she also designs beachwear, party wear and beauty products –

FR »Bien emballé!

Connue mondialement pour sa wrap dress, LA petite robe qui peut embellir n’importe quelle silhouette, la styliste d’origine belge et ex-princesse Diane von Fürstenberg s’entretient avec Veerle Windels “Pour moi, la mode devrait rendre les femmes plus fortes et leur donner plus de confiance en elles,” confie Diane von Fürstenberg, qui se lance dans la conversation tout en préparant le démarrage de sa collection d’été 07, ‘All about Eve’.

Diane Halfin, de son vrai nom, est née à Bruxelles en 1946. Elle hérite de son nouveau titre lors de son mariage avec le prince prusse Egon en 1969, et du jour au lendemain littéralement, elle devient princesse. En 1970, elle invente l’un des designs emblématiques de l’époque – la wrap dress. En une décade von Fürstenberg vend plus de cinq millions de robes et elle fait la couverture de Newsweek. En 1976, on la consacre “la femme la plus remarquable depuis Coco Chanel”.

Dans les années ‘80 von Fürstenberg fait un break du monde de la mode, mais elle revient dans les années 1990 avec de nouveaux styles de robes, conçues pour une nouvelle génération. Aujourd’hui, von Fürstenberg possède des magasins dans le monde entier et tout récemment elle a ouvert des boutiques à Saint Tropez, Tokyo, Paris et Anvers.

Fürstenberg rentre régulièrement en Belgique pour voir son frère Philippe et sa belle-soeur Greta Halfin, qui a ouvert le magasin DVF à Anvers en mars 2006. Tisser des liens très proches avec sa famille au fil du temps, a toujours été un tonifiant pour von Fürstenberg, et bien qu’elle ait atteint ses 60 ans à la fin de 2006, elle déclare: “Je me sens vraiment épanouie en ce moment. J’ai une famille fantastique. Ils sont réellement au cœur de ma vie”.

DVF: A life in dates 1946 Diane Halfin is born in Brussels; 1959 Boarding school in Switzerland, later in England; 1965 Studies Spanish at the University of Madrid; 1967 Introduced to Diana Vreeland, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue; 1969 Marries Egon Von Fürstenberg (in a Dior dress); 1970 Her son Alexandre is born. Shows first collection at New York Fashion Week; 1971 Her daughter Tatiana is born; 1972 Launch of the wrap dress; 1976 Cover story in Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal. Sells five-million wrap dresses; 1979 Licenses her dresses, business weakens; there can be up to 400 pieces each season. And recently the designer was appointed the President of the Council of Fashion designers of America (CFDA).

As for whether or not she wants to keep on growing at this frenetic pace, Diane can now afford to pick and choose what she does saying, “Well, there will be other stores, but I don’t’ just want to put my name on any old product.”

And as her career is on an up, so is von Furstenberg’s personal life. She remarried in 2001 to Barry Diller, formerly head of Paramount Pictures. The wedding was a quiet affair in Manhattan with only family in attendance.

Family is important to von Fürstenberg, who frequently returns to Belgium to see her brother Phillipe and her sister-in-law Greta Halfin, who opened the DVF store in Antwerp in March 2006. And she remains close to her children Alexandre and Tatiana (who are both in their thirties).

Having a close-knit family has been a tonic for von Fürstenberg over the years and although she will have turned 60 at the end of 2006, she professes: “To tell you the truth, I’m having the time of my life. I have a wonderful son and daughter, a loving husband, a brother I adore. I care about my family very much.

They truly are the fabric of my life.”

NL »Familiewikkels

Veerle Windels sprak met Belgisch ontwerpster en voormalige prinses Diane von Fürstenberg, gekend voor haar tijdloze wikkeljurken “Voor mij moet mode vrouwen sterker maken en meer zelfvertrouwen geven”, begint Diane von Fürstenberg het gesprek, bij de nakende lancering van haar 2007 zomercollectie ‘All about Eve’.

Ze werd in 1946 in Brussel geboren als Diane Halfin. Toen ze in 1969 trouwde met de Russische prins Egon von Fürstenberg werd ze van de ene dag op de andere prinses. In 1970 lanceerde ze de wikkeljurk, een van dé ontwerpen van die tijd. Op 10 jaar tijd verkocht von Fürstenberg meer dan vijf miljoen jurken, wat haar op de cover van Newsweek bracht. In 1976 werd ze zelfs bestempeld als “de meest opmerkelijke vrouw sinds Coco Chanel”.

In de jaren ’80 trok von Fürstenberg zich terug uit de modewereld, om in de jaren ’90 een comeback te maken met nieuwe ontwerpen, voor een nieuwe generatie. Vandaag heeft de ontwerpster boetieks over de hele wereld, de meest recente in Saint Tropez, Tokio, Parijs en Antwerpen.

Von Fürstenberg keert nog regelmatig naar België terug om een bezoek te brengen aan broer Philippe en schoonzus Greta Halfin, die in maart 2006 de Diane von Fürstenberg-winkel in Antwerpen opende. Haar hechte familie bleek al die jaren een flinke steun. En hoewel ze eind 2006 zestig geworden is, blijft ze nog even enthousiast: “Ik beleef de tijd van mijn leven. Mijn fantastische familie is het materiaal waaruit mijn leven is gemaakt.”

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