Fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg says watching the documentary about her life was a bit like “being at the gynaecologist”.
Diane von Furstenberg: Woman In Charge follows the Belgian designer’s extraordinary life – from being born in Brussels in 1946, 18 months after her mother was released from Auschwitz, to falling in love with a German prince, moving to New York and partying with the Studio 54 set, and setting up her world-famous eponymous brand, which revolutionised the way women dressed.
When she first watched the Disney+ documentary, von Furstenberg admits laughing through it, adding: “But laughing for me is a defence system, so that doesn’t explain anything.
“It did feel a little bit like being at the gynaecologist – and then, for a few weeks, I got crazy. I got a little paranoid, I said, ‘People are going to think who does she think she is?’ and blah, blah, blah, that I prostituted my family, and for what?”
But the film was selected to open the Tribeca Film Festival in early June, and watching it again made von Furstenberg see the documentary in a new light, and appreciate how “authentic” and “real” it was.
The documentary was co-directed by two-time Oscar-winner Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who explains: “I’ve always told stories about extraordinary women who are faced with adversity, who rise up and find their own yellow brick road, and Diane’s story fits right at the heart of that.
“It’s a story of a woman who was born out of the ashes of World War Two, who was a new immigrant to America, and who started a business at a time when women couldn’t even get a credit card without having a man sign for it.”
Von Furstenberg’s story is told with the help of a star-studded array of talking heads, including Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton, Marc Jacobs and Anderson Cooper.
When Clinton’s name comes up, von Furstenberg whips out her phone and reads out a message from the Former United States Secretary of State, who had just watched the film.
“She said: ‘Diane, wow – the doc is fabulous, honest, charming, poignant and a Valentine to your amazing mother’,” von Furstenberg reads aloud.
“‘I loved every minute and felt such pride and affection for you and the life and legacy you’ve built my friend. Brava for the woman in charge’.”
Von Furstenberg’s mother, Lily Halfin, who died in 2000, is indeed central to the film, and helps you understand how the designer became who she is.
“My mother refused to be a victim, my mother refused to die,” von Furstenberg says.
“That desire to live and honour life was so strong in my mother, and she gave it to us. She gave it to me without crying about it – so I did realise that [the documentary] is an homage to my mother. And because she survived, we are so many – I think we are 13, between my brother, me, the children and the grandchildren.”
At 77, von Furstenberg is as glamorous and effervescent as you could imagine – and you can’t talk about her without mentioning the wrap dress. Inspired by ballerina tops, in the 1970s she created a jersey wrap dress that was form-fitting, wearable and didn’t come saddled with a designer price tag. It instantly became a smash hit, with von Furstenberg saying at one point, she was selling 25,000 dresses a week.
“I made her, but she made me,” von Furstenberg says of the wrap dress. “And because she made me, and she made me an independent woman, I was getting more confidence… And that confidence was contagious.”
Obaid-Chinoy adds: “The wrap dress came at a time when high fashion was not accessible to women. It came at a time when women were being told to dress more like men to be taken seriously.
“It liberated the way women saw themselves in dresses, and it really was a garment of freedom.”
This really speaks to the way von Furstenberg designs clothes. “Christian Lacroix once told me, ‘Men make costumes, and women design clothes’ – and it is true,” she notes.
“If you think about it, from Madame Vionnet to Coco Chanel, to Donna Karan to Norma Kamali – to any woman designer, it’s more about the woman and you know how it feels. That’s why women designers use jersey – men designers don’t really use jersey.”
Von Furstenberg’s career has had its ups and downs – after the huge initial success of the wrap dress, it soon saturated the market and lost its value, before later making a comeback in the Noughties – but she’s always had one eye on the future.
The designer says she’s been thinking about her legacy “since I was five-years-old”, as she was well aware that “the only power I had, was me”.
So what’s next for the fashion powerhouse?
“I’m going to try to use all the things I’ve learned – my wisdom, my knowledge, my connections, my resources – to help other women be the woman they want to be.”
Diane von Furstenberg: Woman In Charge is available on Disney+ from June 25.
