and THE WOMAN I WANTED TO BE by DIANE VON FURSTENBERG
This is going to be a Diane Von Furstenberg December as I'm, electing her as Honorary Mistress of the Month. Long the companion and partner and wife of Barry Diller, now a woman who could be said to have everything - wealth, fame, fulfillment, love - and the will to lift other women up, Diane persisted through times in which she was unsure of her direction, overly influenced by the current main man in her life, times in which she had to admit failures, beg for help, even give some nasty business back so she could survive.
It is especially refreshing to hear her admit as much in the audio book, The Woman I Wanted To Be. She admits to uncertainties, fears, and that bright ideas sometimes fail, while her warm and generous spirit allows her to complement others for their roles, not wasting too much time and energy on condemning. Can anyone actually control their lives totally, especially in the mercurial fashion business? She made decisions spontaneously, sometimes deliberately, often hiring and surrounding herself by others to move her vision along, sometimes loosing that vision. She sees life as a series and variety of events. Her nature has been experimental, and she has reached out to help other women.
I've been fascinated with this woman who says that TRUTH IS HER RELIGION and that ALL MARRIAGES SHOULD BE OPEN for some time. But it was the quote in Gioia Dilberto's book that convinced me that she belongs in the posts/pages of MISTRESS MANIFESTO.
IN THIS QUOTE SHE SAYS SHE WOULD LOVE TO BE A MISTRESS... and she knows that this is an attitude that is more European, that American woman might not understand.
Diane is thought by some in fashion to not actually be a designer but more of a producer. I credit her for figuring out what she could do well and sticking to it, though in her career she has taken departures and had to reassess several times.
Diane Helfin was born in Belgium, the daughter of Holocaust concentration camp survivor, Lily. She considers her birth to her mother, who came out of the camp emaciated, about a year later, as a miracle. Her parents became well off enough to send her away to private boarding school and in her early womanhood she began to socialize with wealthier people than they were. Her mother also told her to never be ashamed of sex and well, she wasn't. She had love affairs and sex with both men and women as did the man she married quite young, Egon Von Furstenberg, a German and Italian Prince. (Her daughter Tatianna had an affair with another woman and stayed friends with her, considers herself part of the tribe.) These two sexual adventurers were a hot couple around town in New York City for some time until a magazine profile made them see themselves and their lives more critically. Diane was a huntress and has no apologies. When they split she was determined to honor the name and the allure of having been married to a Prince but also to make it on her own.
It was the 1970's. She invented the "wrap dress" that made her rich. She learned as she went, and the things that made her dress so important, besides capturing the imagination of women from diverse life experiences, was that it was reasonably affordable, the fine fabric manufactured in Italy on which her designs were printed, and the colors and patterns were bold. The dress looked good on a variety of figures and it moved well and held up well after a hard day of work as a new era of feminism and the sexual revolution accelerated so that you could wear it to work or out of dinner. She posed for her first ad on a mod white cube, the ad saying, "Be a Woman, Wear a Dress." Her forays into cosmetics and a perfume named after her daughter went only so well, and she struggled to understand and stick to her own brand.
About her husband Barry Diller,: their relationship wasn't exactly off and on, it was sort of on in some way no matter who else was going on, and some people think he's gay but for Diane. Unified as a couple and family with her children and grandchildren, the two of them have a fortune that is not just about fashion, but perhaps more correctly pop culture and technological innovation.
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