Original subtitles

[audience applauding]

Downloaded from YTS.MX

Welcome the woman who reinvented the dress.

[chuckles] Is that right?

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

She re-- reinvented the dress?

-[Frank] Love it. -And bec--

-[laughter] -Frank's wearing one this morning.

And became one of America's most successful businesswomen,

Diane von Furstenberg.

[audience applauding]

[inaudible dialogue]

Rein-- Reinvented the dress,

what do they, what do they, what do we mean by that?

I created what was called the wrap dress,

and I wrapped America around.

I mean, everybody had, I mean,

you see those wrap dresses going up and down the streets.

How old were you at this time? Was that a--

-Twenty-two. -Twenty-two.

The 22-year-old women that I know are cheerleaders, you know?

-They... -[audience laughs]

Uh, and, and how do you, um...

how do you get to be a princess?

Well, in my case, I married a prince.

[audience laughs]

Okay.

[Oprah Winfrey] My first impression of Diane von Furstenberg was,

"Now there's a woman."

[♪ "Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves" by Eurythmics & Aretha Franklin playing]

[TV presenter 1] Diane von Furstenberg, a true feminist icon,

changed the face of fashion with a single wrap dress.

[TV presenter 2] The wrap dress made Diane von Furstenberg

a household name and a fashion tycoon.

Diane was one of the very first women

who'd really broken through, uh, the glass ceiling in business.

DVF, those three letters as in, you know, logo, is known all over the world.

[speaker 1] What other brand can you think about

that's had a dress that still sells 50 years later?

But Diane is more than a fashion designer, she's an icon.

[Nathan Jenden] Diane blazed a trail, really.

Every woman's a woman in charge now.

Every woman's on the go, and that's Diane.

[Linda Bird Francke] She's without boundary.

She loved to say that she was living a man's life,

but she did it in high heels. [chuckles]

I think DVF is one of the youngest people that I've ever met.

The first one on the dance floor, the last one at the party.

[speaker 2] She is the sexiest woman I know.

[speaker 3] Sex was part of her brand.

[speaker 4] She's very unapologetic about who she is.

Diane is very clever, you know, she's a hustler.

[Gloria Steinem] She wasn't trying to become the only woman in a male club.

She was changing the whole nature of the club.

[Marc Jacobs] Sometimes what makes history

is when you go against what you're told is okay to do.

And Diane had the strength to do it.

[Diane von Furstenberg] I made an enormous amount of money very quickly,

and then all of a sudden, woom, lost it all.

[Anderson Cooper] If you look at her from afar,

you just see this successful person

and you think, oh, maybe it's been really easy for her.

But when you actually hear her story

and where she came from, you realize it's hard-earned.

[speaker 5] She's a survivor. She never stopped.

♪ Here we come now ♪

-♪ Sisters are doin' it for themselves ♪ -♪ We're doin' and we're doin' ♪

♪ And we're doin' it, yeah ♪

[sighs]

Yeah.

I don't understand why so many people do not embrace age.

[♪ gentle piano music playing]

I've always been attracted by wrinkles, you know?

Age... age means living.

You shouldn't say how old you are.

You should say, "How long have you lived?"

♪♪

If you take all your wrinkles away,

you know, the map of your life is different.

I don't really want to erase anything from my life.

Alright.

♪♪

Okay, I'm gonna get dressed now.

I've had a full life.

I mean, I'm 76, I should be 300.

-[director] Okay. -[crew member] Rolling, rolling.

[director] You know, Diane, you've led a life

where you have talked about

sort of the adventures you've gone on

and then you've talked about the men you've been with.

You haven't hidden behind a sort of persona

that a lot of successful women feel they have to.

Why?

Well, I mean, I could ask you the same question.

I mean, why do you have to hide?

Why? Why?

[director] Society makes you think about--

Well, no, socie-- No, I, I-- Why do you have to hide?

What my mother taught me is take responsibility of yourself.

And so, I've taken the responsibility of all the things I've done.

The only place to find your strength

is by being true to yourself.

That's your only shelter.

I think what defines me the most, really,

is the moment I was born.

[crowd cheering]

[♪ light music playing]

And you have to go back to the end of the war in Brussels.

There was this young woman who had nothing but bone,

who was 22 years old in a desert of ashes.

Eighteen months before I was born, my mother was in Auschwitz.

♪♪

[Lily Halfin] You know, I was in the concentration camp

and I was very skinny and sick.

When I come back, I was only 44 pounds.

[Diane] She survived the death camp.

Her parents could not believe that she was there alive.

And her mother fed her like a little bird,

every five minutes, a little bit food.

And within six months, she had gained her, her normal weight.

Her fiancé, my father, came back from Switzerland.

They planned to get married and the doctor said,

"Yes, you can get married, but you cannot have a child."

[Lily] The doctor said to my husband,

"Monsieur, it's very dangerous

"if, if she... your wife has a baby,

"um, because she's not in, uh,

in a possibility to have a child."

[Diane] The doctor said, "You, the mother, will not survive it

and your child will not be normal."

And sure enough, I was born nine months later.

And in a sense, I was not normal.

♪♪

[Lily] God send me Diane.

It was a present.

[Diane] Just the fact that I was born was a victory.

She used to say, "God saved me so that I can give you life.

"By giving you life, you gave me my life back.

You are my torch of freedom."

[♪ soft symphonic music playing]

I usually don't come back to Brussels.

I always feel sad in Brussels somehow.

Although I really love the fact that,

you know, I was born here, I'm Belgian.

Every time I come back, I feel small again.

You know, my mother was very tough when I was a little girl.

She wanted me to be independent no matter what.

She didn't want me to be a victim,

never want me to be afraid, and she always pushed me.

I don't think my mother ever said, be careful.

If I was afraid of the dark,

she would lock me in a dark closet.

Today she could go to jail for it.

But she was right, because once you're in a dark closet,

it doesn't stay dark.

And even if it did stay dark, why fear?

She wanted to equip me

in case I ever needed to live what she lived.

♪♪

My mother was traumatized.

So even though she didn't really show it to me,

you know, there was always behind closed door,

I knew that, you know, she went back to a dark place.

When I would come back from school,

my first thing is, "How is my mother?" You know?

My mother was my concern.

I was never a child, I was always a grown-up.

I had my mother's concern first, for sure.

Even as a little girl, I wanted to get out.

It was always independence that excited me.

And I remember feeling so different than everyone else.

It's all got to do with my hair.

Everybody in Belgium has blonde straight hair,

and I have black curly hair.

It's as stupid as that.

I just had to run away to make my own life.

And besides, my mother left before I did.

One day, I came back from school

and, uh...

there was a blue envelope

addressed to my mother in the hallway.

And I don't know what happened to me.

And I opened the envelope.

It was a letter addressed to my mother from a man.

That man turned out to be, later...

her lover, and she ended up leaving my father for that man.

It was a divorce, like a war.

I mean, it's... it was a big fight.

[Diane] I never questioned my mother,

I never judged her at all.

And... I don't know why.

I mean, I didn't think she didn't love me,

but she just had... she just had to go.

[♪ peppy saxophone music playing]

I mean, I just saw it as freedom for everybody.

After the divorce,

my mother put me in boarding school in Switzerland.

For me, being in boarding school was the best thing ever.

♪♪

There was the excitement of being on my own

and anything can happen.

The first year at boarding school,

I fell in love and I had my first love with a boy.

He was Persian.

♪♪

And then after that, I fell in love with a girl.

And it was passion, I loved her.

And, uh, I kind of got expelled for that reason.

Her sexual fluidity is, is sexy.

[♪ Italian pop song playing]

[Anh Duong] Diane is not afraid of her desires.

In our society, you know, women tend to be afraid of wanting too much,

but Diane is not afraid to own her sexuality.

[Diane] Very often you are in love with love.

And when I was 18 I met Egon.

[♪ "Tuca Tuca" by Raffaella Carrà playing]

♪ Ah-ah, mi piaci ♪

He was a prince.

♪ Ah-ah-ah ♪

His mother was Agnelli,

the big car company in Europe.

[Olivier Gelbsmann] Egon was very handsome

and the kindest man that I've ever met.

He liked to have fun, obviously,

and also liked Diane very much,

and he like me also.

[chuckles]

[♪ "Tuca Tuca" continues]

[Diane] Egon is the young prince

that everybody wants to go out with.

And so, I was clearly invited with him.

So that was my first kind of touch with the jet set.

He initiated me to that life.

[Gioia Diliberto] Diane became part of a group of young people

who were wealthy, and beautiful,

and were following the social seasons around Europe.

For a middle-class Jewish girl,

it was not a natural entrée into the world

of these moneyed aristocrats,

but she managed to infiltrate them.

[Diane] Egon told me he loved me and I loved him.

He believed in me before anyone else.

[♪ "Tuca Tuca" continues]

And when I was an awkward 18-year-old girl,

he was instrumental in giving me confidence.

But, you know, we were so young.

So he had this life, I had my life.

Egon went to America,

and I went to Paris.

[♪ mellow French song playing]

♪♪

I met this guy, Albert Koski, he was a photographer's agent.

He had a house in the 16th arrondissement,

that was the center for models and photographers.

So I started to work for him.

My job was answering the phone and said that he wasn't there

either to photographers he hadn't paid,

or to girls that he had been with the night before

and he didn't wanna see.

And, of course, as a young girl working with all these men,

this one tried to, you know, lock you in a room.

It's just part of life, you just kick them off, you know?

[director] Was there ever a time that made you uncomfortable?

No. No, no.

I cannot say that...

anyone has done anything that made me uncomfortable.

I would never give anyone that much credit.

[chuckles]

On my 20th birthday, Egon invited me to Cortina.

And that's where I met Angelo Ferretti.

Ferretti had a printing plant in Como, Italy.

He would make scarves for Gucci, Ferragamo,

all of the big... Valentino, whatever.

And he said to me, "You should come

and see where they make fashion."

Ferretti also wanted very much to get me in his bed,

but I didn't.

Anyway, it just so happened that I was there at that time,

and he had the idea of making

printed T-shirts out of jersey.

Then I thought, "Oh, there's something cute there.

And I love the idea of these T-shirt dresses."

So I started to stay late, you know, with a pattern maker

and make a few samples here and there.

I was inspired by the little wrap top

that the ballerinas used to wear.

So that was the inspiration.

So, first, it was a wrap top with a matching skirt.

You know, it wasn't like, "Ooh, I wanna be a fashion designer."

No. I just thought, "Oh, I can make some samples

that I will try to sell."

[birds chirping]

-So that's the very first... top. -[assistant] That's the very first one.

-[assistant] Top, skirt. -And, and skirt.

It came in the leopard

and then in some other prints, including this one.

And so this was the first idea...

-Mm-hmm. -...that took Diane to the wrap dress?

-[assistant] Exactly. -[Nicolas Lor] Exactly.

[Diane] I got a call from a young fashion curator in Brussels.

He wanted to do an exhibition on me and my dresses.

[speaking Italian]

I mean, it would've been incredibly pretentious...

-[chuckles] -...that I went into fashion

because I wanted to create the uniform for freedom.

[Nicolas] Mm.

I mean, that would've been ridiculous.

I don't think that I had a vocation for fashion.

-Mm-hmm. -I had a vocation to be a woman in charge,

to be a free woman, that was my vocation.

-[Nicolas] Anything could be-- -Fashion became a, a way to do it.

[♪ pensive music playing]

The last thing I was thinking about is getting married.

I was so young.

But then Egon gave me a ring,

meaning that, you know, we would get married one day.

I continued to work, and then one day I fainted.

People were looking at me and she said,

"She's dead, she's dead."

And I said, "No, I'm not dead."

And I was not dead, but actually I was pregnant.

♪♪

I was 22.

And I could not believe it.

I said, "This is terrible, this is not possible.

"I cannot get married pregnant.

"I mean, everyone is gonna think that I did it on purpose.

"This little Jewish girl marrying a prince,

there's no way, no way, I can't have the child."

And so I went back to Geneva to see my mother.

And I also went to see a doctor to see, you know...

And my mother said, "Listen, he gave you a ring

"and you talked about getting married one day.

So whatever decision you make, you have to do together."

Ah!

And so it took me hours and hours to write a telegram

to tell him that it was okay, I can handle everything.

And he sent me a telegram back saying,

"Organized wedding, mid-July, Paris."

[♪ soft piano music playing]

Instead of hiding that I was pregnant, you know, I made a point.

I'm pregnant, so I can't be completely in white.

♪♪

So I had a petticoat of all colors

and a belt which was all colors,

ribbon and a hat with all colored flowers.

[director] A Jewish girl marrying--

A prince, a German prince.

-[director] A German prince. -Yes.

That's a big deal.

On my side, you could say that my mother could have minded.

She didn't... she loved Egon from day one.

[guests cheering and whooping]

From his side, it was a little difficult

to, ooh, to have Jewish blood.

♪♪

Egon's father came for the, for the ceremony,

but not for the reception.

[Gioia] The night before the wedding at the rehearsal dinner,

he commented to a friend of Diane's,

"I don't know why Egon is marrying this dark little Jewish girl."

He did used to call me and my brother little Jews

in front of Lily.

I didn't experience it as anti-Semitic

because I was like two years old or three years old.

But in hindsight,

I think it may have been a little bit aggressive

towards my grandmother.

[Tassilo von Furstenberg] I was named after my great-grandfather

who was an Austrian aristocrat.

And my great-- my great-grandmother was a Holocaust survivor,

so it's always been talked about.

It's about my family that we've had this dynamic.

We've had both the suffering and the oppressing.

♪♪

[Diane] My roots are Jewish, my mother paid for that.

She paid for that,

but I was her revenge.

[guests applauding]

[♪ piano music playing]

When I went to the Furstenberg Castle,

I thought, "Maybe they, they will poison me."

It was after lunch, and there may have been the remark

that annoyed me, and I went on a walk.

But I don't remember what annoyed me.

What I remember is the conversation that I had

with my unborn child.

"We will show them.

"We will show them.

We will show them."

♪♪

Egon was already in New York.

I wanted to take a boat

to come to America.

[ship horn blaring]

I had this idea, you come to America,

the boat, the Statue of Liberty.

So I didn't wanna fly

because I wanted to think about my future.

And then I had my little suitcase full of samples.

[♪ "New York City Rhythm" by Barry Manilow playing]

♪ City rhythm, ooh ♪

♪ City rhythm ♪

When I arrived, New York is buzzing.

There were so many artists, there was Hair on Broadway.

Nudity on Broadway,

I mean, it was just, oh, my God, talk about freedom.

[engines roaring]

It was the women's liberation,

and Gloria Steinem, and all of that.

And for me, it was like being in American movie.

♪ It's the New York City rhythm runnin' through my life ♪

We go out every night.

I mean, we'd go to cocktail parties,

we'd go to dinner parties, we go to openings,

we'd go to fashion shows.

There were all these young designers,

Giorgio di Sant' Angelo who was making bodysuits,

Halston who was making fluid silhouettes.

Stephen Burrows, who made very body-conscience clothes.

You could find inexpensive things that were stylish

because America was a much bigger country.

So Egon, the young prince, he knew everybody.

He arranged an appointment for me to show my dresses

to Diana Vreeland.

Now, Diana Vreeland is the most intimidating person

I have ever met in my life.

So I, I go in with a big huge suitcase

and I start hanging the clothes.

All of a sudden she walks in with red nail polish,

and red, red lipstick, and black, black hair.

And she comes to me and she pushes my chin up.

And she said, "Chin up, up!"

And I thought, "Ooh, my God, where am I?"

Two girls were modeling for her.

They start to put the clothes on,

and she looks at me and she said, "Aah, ooh, rah, rah."

Before I know, I am pushed out the door, packing my luggage,

not knowing what has happened to me at all.

But she had an assistant who said,

"I think she's gonna help you, I think she liked it."

Before I knew I had a company.

She didn't come in with an idea.

She came in with a package, with a product.

She wasn't just a person with a dream.

She came in with a whole thing digested, fixed, arranged.

[Diane] I hired this salesman and he was a great salesman.

And he pushed me, he sent me on the road.

I would go to Pittsburgh, I would go to Oklahoma.

I would go all over.

I would go back and forth to the factory,

but my orders were so small.

And I would go to Ferretti, and he said,

"I can't make these small orders."

But I would cry and, "Please," and "Trust me."

I work out of my dining room.

I sell them, I do the invoice, I do everything.

[Fran Lebowitz] It must have been incredibly hard for her.

Women in the fashion business weren't designers, mostly, they were models.

The fashion business in New York,

it was very hard business and a, and a rough business.

[car horns honking]

[director] And, you didn't know anything about running a business?

I didn't... I-I still don't. [chuckles]

I, I, uh, I didn't know anything, I didn't know anything.

I was a new immigrant in America,

in a business that I knew nothing about,

in a country that I knew very little about.

Everything was new and I was inventing it.

[♪ light, cheerful music playing]

And I was also a new mother.

Alex was born in '70 January.

♪♪

Tatiana was born in February '71.

And I always compare her to the drop of oil in the vinaigrette.

She made it happen, she made us a family.

[director] When did you realize your mother

was not like every other mother?

Well, in a weird way, she is like any other mom.

I mean, she certainly lived her best life,

but that was secondary to, you know, the family and, and love, and...

So I don't think that it was so much different

than any other, sort of... Jewish mom.

[Tatiana von Furstenberg] My mother and father were both very young

when they had my brother and I.

So they relied very heavily on the whole village

to raise us.

My grandmother, Lily, she took care of me like a mother would.

She covered my mom so that my mother could be free to do her thing.

My mom was, like, doing so much in her life

between working and going out and being a young person.

So my grandmother was more of just, like, a steady presence.

Did my parents actually have time for family time?

I wouldn't say they had the longest attention span.

I don't know if you wanna use the word "neglected" or "free,"

but we were, like, not infantilized or cared for as children.

Like, we cooked for ourselves,

we traveled alone at a very young age.

[Diane] Did I have enough time for them? Probably not.

But, I-- I was...

I mean, they were always in-inside me, you know?

They were always inside me from the moment they were born.

[host] All ready?

[Diane] And then I had a husband who was hard to follow.

[host] Here we are, Prince von Furstenberg

and what brings you out to another star-studded celebrity night?

Just came back, I can't answer you.

-[host] Where have you been? -I was in Italy.

[host] Okay, alright, thank you.

Prince von Furstenberg, one of the other glittering stars

that are making this night at the Rainbow Room,

one to remember. [clicks tongue]

[Bob Colacello] Egon and Diane, they were like this "it" couple.

They exuded this glamour and this sexiness, this sensuality.

It's more like they strutted into the room.

They announced themselves just by their body movements.

And Egon was a very sexy, somewhat decadent guy.

He was very outgoing, very seductive.

He sort of had the attitude that everybody wanted to sleep with him...

[laughs] ...male, female, and whatever.

He just exuded this kind of romantic confidence, let's say.

Egon was this very attractive husband

who was very promiscuous

at a time that it was very hip to be promiscuous.

Egon to me, would be the perfect husband.

I loved him.

He was known for being decadent

in an environment where you had to be outstanding

in that field to be known for that.

[Gigi Williams] If I could find a gay man to fall in love with,

who was that powerful and allowed me to be who I am,

boy, I'd fall for him in a second.

[Diane] It was a lot of going out, a lot of noise,

and a lot of parties.

I don't know how I did it, I don't know how I did it.

Two small children, I mean, really,

I mean, my children are 13 months apart.

And then this one thing that changed it.

New York Magazine was a very, very hot magazine.

The editor-in-chief commissions a 10-page cover story

on me and Egon.

[Linda] And I went up to their apartment.

They were very, very nice, very charming.

Diane was so exotic.

She was then saying all the things that she would say now,

a woman needing independence

and, uh, wanting to make her own way,

so I liked her a lot.

But Prince Egon,

and I think the word "prince" has to come in here

because he was arrogant, he was condescending,

he was filled with entitlement.

Just wanted to go whack. [laughs]

[director] Can I quote from the article?

Yeah, you can do whatever you want, you're the director.

You absolutely want this angle?

[cameraman] Uh, many, many angles.

[laughs]

[director] "Egon admits that were he to meet an attractive man,

"he would not loath to experiment,

but Diane is not so sure."

[♪ pensive music playing]

[Diane] Egon was difficult to be married with,

he was so much of a flirt.

I realize that I'm a person, not a couple,

and therefore I can't be married anymore.

[Gioia] I don't think she was embarrassed by the sex at all.

That was part of their persona as ultra sophisticates.

I think it was just the entire picture.

[Linda] From New York Magazine's point of view,

they were Eurotrash.

There's a line that she went back to Europe

and brought back some little fluffy things to sell.

[Gioia] Even though she was this businesswoman,

the only thing anybody saw was the princess.

[Diane] They were looking at me like this, you know, Park Avenue princess.

I didn't like the, necessarily that image.

I'd rather be an Amazon on a horse.

Divorce for me was freedom.

I mean, the common thread in my life

has always been freedom.

[Tatiana] I think my parents' marriage was not great.

I think she had a lot of, like, feelings that she didn't wanna put onto me

because she'd been holding it together for us the whole time.

I think, you know, growing up with a very young single mom is just like that.

♪♪

[Olivier] The princess story did not last very long.

[Olivier laughs]

She's very practical, so, you know,

to be a princess meant what exactly, you know?

And then she became a business woman, you know?

So, certainly became more DVF, you know?

[chuckles]

[Diane] I became the woman I wanted to be.

I was in charge of my destiny.

I was in charge of my children,

I was in charge of my life,

I was in charge of my business.

I was a woman in charge.

[♪ mellow music playing]

♪♪

[♪ music fades]

Hi, have you found anything?

-[assistant 1] Hmm? -[Diane] Have you found anything?

-[assistant 2] We found a lot. -[assistant 1] We found a lot.

[Diane] [clears throat] Okay.

Alright, so, the original--

So wh-which is the one, is this the one they needed?

[assistant 2] This is '70s?

So that's one that he chose for the '70s.

I mean, this is, this is, this is, this is 50 years old.

This is a wrap dress that I love, by the way.

[director] Diane let's go back to the dress, the wrap dress,

what inspired that design?

-[helicopter blades whirring] -[people clamoring]

[Diane] In 1973, Nixon was in trouble.

[clamoring]

I condemn any attempts to cover up in this case,

no matter who is involved.

[Diane] One day on television I saw Nixon's daughter

defending her father.

She was wearing my little wrap top

with a matching skirt.

And I thought, "Oh, my God, maybe I should turn it into a dress."

That's when it all clicked.

I wanted to make a little announcement in Women's Wear Daily.

So I hired a photographer to take a picture of me in my dress.

When the picture came, I liked the picture,

but the white cube was so big.

So I said, "I need to write something on the cube."

I wrote, "Feel like a woman, wear a dress."

And I signed, Diane von Furstenberg.

And that dress became...

a, a phenomenon, a success.

It became crazy.

[Gioia] The wrap dress was the go-to garment.

Everybody I knew had one.

It seemed to epitomize a modern, independent,

sexy woman who could have it all.

[Oprah] I remember being a young reporter,

saving up for a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress.

It was such a status symbol to have one of those dresses.

[Vanessa Friedman] This dress empowered a giant swath of women

who could actually afford to wear it.

Which, you know, let's be honest, is not true of most high fashion.

Right? Like, most high fashion kind of exists over here.

And Diane's dress exists in the middle of the history

of women's rights and women in the workforce

and women kind of finding their own voice.

[Gioia] Women in the '70s were told,

if you wanted to be taken seriously,

you had to tamp down your sexuality.

You had to wear a suit that looked like a man's suit

and you had to make yourself as unfeminine as possible.

Formfitting wrap dresses were exactly opposite of that.

[interviewee] She knows what a woman is like.

She knows what her dimensions are.

You know, just nice soft dresses, soft designs.

I own about a half a dozen of 'em I want you to know, and they're all fine.

[Diane] It was an $86 dress, that-that's the prize then.

So it became the first dress for so many people

for the first job, for the first interview,

for the first prom.

In no time at all,

I was making 25,000 dresses a week.

That's 50,000 sleeves.

[Hillary Rodham Clinton] It's odd to think that a single dress

could have made that kind of impact.

But I was there and it did.

I mean, it had a huge reverberation.

[Diane] At the age of 28, I was on the cover of Newsweek.

[Fran] Newsweek went all over the country.

So, you know, it's very likely that, you know, someone in Kansas or something

sees that, she thinks, "I could wear that.

"I could wear that,

and also, I'm kind-- I would kinda then be like Diane."

Of course, that's not true, but people believe that.

And that is how you have a giant success.

[camera shutter clicking]

-[photographer] Great. -Okay.

[photographer] Amazing.

[crew member] Oops.

-[Diane] There it is. Okay. -[photographer] Thank you very much.

[Diane] Thank you.

[Diane] Merci.

[indistinct chatter]

"You should remember the woman, not the dress."

[♪ peppy music playing]

[Marc] Diane was one of the first influencers.

An influencer today, whether they're doing makeup tutorials

or whatever it is that they're doing,

it's like their audience is tuning in to them,

and buying what they use,

and what they say is good, you know?

Like, so absolutely she did that first.

[interviewer] What does glamorous mean?

-What does glamorous mean? -[interviewer] Yeah.

Uh... Well, I guess shiny, no?

Isn't that glamour, very sparkly and shiny?

[Gigi] Diane and I would put out a notice at shopping malls,

and all these women would show up.

Hello, it's very nice to be here

and I'm delighted to have such a big crowd.

I'm delighted to have such a young crowd too.

[crowd applauding]

And we would be doing makeup

and talking to a whole crowd of women,

and our main focus was feminism.

You know, we'd start out with,

first of all, you should only spend five minutes

to seven minutes doing your makeup

because you have other things to do.

Basically, it was like, don't depend on the man in your life

because he's not gonna be around, so just take care of yourself.

In 1976, as a woman, you couldn't have a credit card

or a checking account without a husband

or a father co-signing for you, and that's where we were.

[Oprah] Being able to organize and orchestrate a business for yourself

was such an extraordinary accomplishment,

at a time when women were not even considered

second-class citizens.

It's just, like, we didn't even matter.

We had no value in the workplace.

[Regis Philbin] Alright, now we are joined by Diane von Furstenberg,

who has a tremendous spread

-in the new Vogue magazine. -Yes.

You have changed yourself, haven't you?

-Well, I hope I keep on growing. -You look a little different.

-Yes, you look different, Diane. -I hope I keep on growing.

-Well, I am getting old. -Well, no, no, no, no, no.

I mean, you've changed your whole hairstyle.

-[Cyndy Garvey] Sure. -Well, uh,

you know, you keep on growing

and you try to get a little better and, um, you know...

And I have my moods too.

What kind of mood are you in right now?

Well, now I'm trying to be real efficient,

and convincing, and nice, and--

With, uh, stockings like those?

[audience laughs]

[Nathan] I think all women are treated differently

because they're women.

You are a young woman, you are dismissed,

you're a young pretty woman, you are dismissed, you know?

You've married someone, you're dismissed

because you're just a wife.

You're... you know-- And now, when you're Diane's age,

you're just an old woman, you know?

Like, it's always dismissive.

[Gioia] She had to be incredibly tough

and relentless in pushing for what she wanted,

in the face of resistance

from men who wanted to deny her entrée into their world.

The way she presented herself as this very sexy,

glamorous woman in fishnets and stilettos was exactly opposite

how a woman who wanted to be professional in the '70s

was supposed to present.

[camera shutter snapping]

[Anh] Seduction is part of her being, it's part of her power.

She knows exactly how far she can go with it

and she knows how great she is at it.

But it's a sweet weapon, it's not necessarily an aggressive,

it's a very, um, loving one too.

[Christian Louboutin] When I first met her, it was in Paris,

and I do remember that immediately she says,

"You know the guy you were just speaking to?"

She said, "He's very sexy."

I said, "Go for it."

So, the funny thing is that, without knowing each other,

after two minutes she had spotted someone and she was like on it.

She actually, I think that they had an affair

at that one point quite quickly after.

Back then, you shared yourself

where you wanted to share yourself.

I mean, women should do what men can do.

I mean, why can a man get away with things and women can't?

Uh, that's just... whatever.

[♪ rock music playing]

Different times there'd be a male model or a movie star,

or, you know, whoever in, you know,

her room when I would go give her a kiss

to go, before I went to school, that would never faze me.

[Tatiana] I knew who her boyfriends were,

the three or four that she had,

but I don't know what else she did.

Nor am I really interested. [laughs]

♪ One, two, three, let's go ♪

[♪ guitar solo]

[Alexander von Furstenberg] Has she given you the list?

-[director] She has given me the list. -[laughs]

And she's proud of it.

-[director] It's pretty cool. -It's pretty cool.

-[laughing] -[director] It's pretty cool.

I mean, how many people live like that?

[director] Did you have relationships with any of these guys?

[Diane] What do you call a relationship?

Did I seduce him?

Yes.

I was with Warren Beatty and Ryan O’Neal

on the same weekend.

How about that?

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

And I had a thing with Richard Gere. He was cute.

One day, Mick Jagger came with David Bowie.

You know, maybe we could all have fun together,

the three of us.

And I thought, "Well, that's something I could tell my grandchildren."

But they were both sitting on the sofa

and I just thought, "This is... I can't... I mean, I can't.

I just, I just can't do that."

So I said, "Guys, I love you very much,

but I think you're gonna have to go elsewhere."

[Talita von Furstenberg] She really did live her life the way she wanted.

I mean, she rejected a threesome with Mick Jagger and Bowie.

Resisting those two rock stars

in the prime of their career is just really epic.

[♪ rock music continues]

I was having a man's life in a woman's body.

Yes. God, yes.

[♪ pensive music playing]

And then of course, I met Barry

and fell in love.

[Barry Diller] The first time I met Diane is definitely embedded

solidly into my brain.

And there is some controversy

'cause Diane actually says it didn't happen,

but I know that it did happen.

It was at a dinner given by friends of mine.

Diane and Egon came to this dinner

and I was introduced to Diane,

who looked at me like I was cellophane.

At one point, Egon came up to me, who I'd never met before,

and he said, "Your pants are too short."

And, of course, they were.

I wasn't chopped liver,

I was chairman of Paramount Pictures.

I left that night and I thought,

"I never wanna see those people again."

But less than a year later, Diane gave a dinner.

So I go to the dinner,

I was gonna stay 20 minutes,

and I ended up staying more than an hour and a half or so.

Most of the time spent talking to Diane.

There was some absolute magnetism in the air between us.

[♪ "Heart of Glass" by Blondie playing]

[Diane] Barry came into my life and the feeling was very sudden

and very, very, very strong.

He just opened up, and he had never opened to anyone,

and he opened up to me without even thinking.

That's what I fell in love with.

♪ Much o' mistrust, love's gone behind ♪

I've always been attracted to shy men

'cause I feel like I can bring something out of them.

She cracked me open from almost the first day.

Magic, sorceress?

I don't know what, but she did.

We were madly in love, madly in love.

But we were two tycoons.

He was chairman of Paramount Pictures.

I was this big success.

[Barry] In the early years, we were both kinda busy,

so half of our relationship was being apart

and half was being together.

This was a time also when there was a lot of freedom

of dating, having side relationships,

and flirting, and all of that.

Whatever your excesses were,

whatever your sexuality was, it was all okay.

It was before AIDS,

it was before any kind of moral clamp down

that happened in the Reagan years.

It was the Studio 54 of our lives.

[♪ "I Feel Love" by Donna Summer playing]

[TV presenter 1] Studio 54.

It attracts the rich and the famous,

the glamorous and the powerful.

[TV presenter 2] Piercing lights, a cascade of special effects,

supple-bodied young waiters dressed in nothing but shorts,

and the dance floor, where practically anything goes.

♪♪

[Diane] We thought we had invented freedom.

I had lots of friends there, you know, Bianca Jagger,

Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli,

and everybody ended up there late at night, you know?

♪♪

Very often I would have dinner with my children and my mother,

and then later that night

I would put my cowboy boots on and drive my car.

I would just feel so free because I would walk in alone.

[Bob] Everything just sort of was so open

and Diane was very much in the middle of that.

[Gigi] There were no rules, you just did what felt good.

You met somebody, you went home with them.

I don't think I've ever had a date.

[chuckles]

It wasn't, okay, now I'm with a man, or now I'm with a woman.

Diane and I flirted with each other all the time.

We thought nothing could be better for you than promiscuity.

For sure, promiscuity was good for you.

It was a time of more people having more sex.

Even straight people.

♪ I feel love ♪

[Barry] A lot of people were doing drugs.

I was not, Diane was just smoking marijuana.

[Fran] Cocaine was like a huge drug, and Quaaludes.

Steve Rubell, who was one of the owners,

he would always put like a,

like a handful in your hand when you went in.

I would always take the Quaaludes

because girls liked them, but I never took one.

It didn't last that long,

I, I think it lasted like two years maybe.

I could be wrong, maybe even less.

[Linda] Diane gave a going-away party for Steve Rubell.

I was such a Gidget that I asked whoever's standing next to me

where Steve Rubell was going.

I thought, "Oh, some fantastic vacation or something."

And the answer was, "To jail."

[laughs]

[Bob] Diane's parties were just great mixes of people.

It was uptown and downtown.

It was Henry Kissinger, or it was Norman Mailer,

it was Susan Sontag, it was Andy.

And, um, you know, Diane and Egon always remained really friendly.

He would roll with, you know, a posse of five, six guys.

There was no judgment, there was no hiding.

I knew that he was gay, very, you know...

He was, uh, very open and honest.

[Tatiana] I think my dad's nickname was "Egon von First in Bed".

I mean, I certainly met many people

that were his boyfriends.

But you have to understand, at the time,

my dad's promiscuity, it was, like, terrifying

because that was the beginning of AIDS.

[♪ solemn music playing]

[Gigi] In 1981 I became very aware

that something was killing everybody.

And that was our clique, that was our group.

Everything went back to the dark ages.

Free love was gone.

♪♪

[Diane] It was a difficult time.

A lot of people were dying,

a lot of talented people, young people.

You know, all of our family friends.

I mean, my mom and dad both worked in fashion

and, um, it was like everybody.

[Alexander] AIDS had a really huge impact on my family

in a really deep way.

And most importantly, my father.

[Diane] I remember when he told me that he was positive.

My children were traumatized.

[Alexander] And I saw him suffer for, you know, close to a decade.

[Tatiana] I was so terrified of him dying, like, terrified.

[Diane] I loved him, I never stopped loving him.

I was with Egon with my children when he died.

♪♪

I closed his eyes.

[Alexander] Watching someone that was full of life,

life of the party, slowly dwindle away

from AIDS sucked.

And I actually watched him die.

I watched him take his last breath,

and dying sucks.

[♪ solemn music fades out]

[TV presenter] Diane von Furstenberg

is a name known to women throughout this country.

Once dismissed as a frivolous jet setter,

she has since built a multimillion-dollar fragrance

and fashion empire aimed at women, not unlike herself.

When did you decide that the time had come

to begin building your empire?

Well, it didn't come that way.

I very much wanted to work,

I very much wanted to be independent

and then I was very successful very quickly,

made enormous amount of money very quickly,

and then all of a sudden, woom, lost it all.

One morning we woke up and every newspaper was,

all the dresses were on sale.

I was saturating the market.

Every woman in America, she had one, two, five, ten, sometimes twenty

of the same dresses.

That couldn't go on.

It was very difficult, all these big responsibilities, liabilities,

and I went through a midlife crisis

that usually a big businessman of 50 has.

My company was in trouble

and then something happened that was 100 times worse.

I had a phone call from my mother's companion.

They had gone on a business trip to Germany

and I don't know what happened,

but something must have triggered.

He woke up and he looked for her, and he could not find her.

And he went to the lobby

and she was hiding

under the concierge's desk.

She went crazy.

[Linda] She was in Germany

and there were German men around talking loudly.

It just triggered a whole panic.

And so she was in a mental ward.

[Diane] I took a plane from New York and I came to Geneva.

I brought the children because I needed them to be near me.

I arrived in the hospital and I discovered my mother,

tiny, tiny, tiny, like a little bird on her bed

with her fur coat on her.

Her fur coat, you have to understand,

was probably the most meaningful thing for her.

[Linda] She had bought the fur coat with the reparations

from the German government

because she had been so cold, so cold,

how she survived, I really do not know.

[Diane] When my mother had her breakdown,

that's when I had just a taste

of the horrible stuff she went through.

That's when I understood how hard it had been on her.

"Between August 1942 and July '44,

"twenty-eight trains left from the Dossin barracks

and deported 25,628 Jews."

So she went in, she went in one like that.

Crazy, huh?

My mother gets arrested in Belgium,

five days in the cattle train, no food, no water,

people, you know, throwing up, all of that.

And she always told me, "Fear is not an option."

When she was arrested, she took some cardboard

and she wrote to her parents,

and she threw it in the, in-- on the street

hoping that somebody would find it.

And she never-- See, she said, "Merci beaucoup,"

she gave the address, and she wrote to her parents.

[emotional sigh]

[♪ somber music playing]

My mother is incredibly, incredibly important.

In every cell of my being.

[guide] Only the ones in sepia are the ones who survived.

So, everybody in black and white did not survive.

[Diane] She lived the horror

that none of us can even imagine.

♪♪

[Tatiana] When my grandmother had her nervous breakdown in Germany,

I think it was my mother's worst nightmare,

because we always tried to keep her buoyed

and it took her about a year to fully recover.

[Diane] After my mother got better we came back to New York

and I was invited to get an award

by the Anti-Defamation League at the Hotel Pierre.

They called me on stage and I said,

"You all know me because, you know, of my dresses,

"but what you don't know is that 18 months before I was born,

my mother was in Auschwitz, I am a child of a survivor."

To hear myself saying that

was so shocking to me.

I started to tremble, I couldn't believe that I said that.

And I remember I walked back home

and I was in shock.

I had realized...

who I was and where I came from,

and before that I had never done that.

Her way to deal with being sad sometimes

is to really concentrate on something else.

So it's, it is there, but she doesn't wanna put it in front.

[Diane] That was key moment in my life.

I had all of a sudden the responsibility to talk about it,

and I didn't wanna do that.

I wanted to go as far as I could possibly go.

I took my children and we went to Bali.

I fell into nature, and, and sarongs, and volcanoes,

and... and I just lived a fantasy.

[waves crashing]

And there I met Paolo,

and we fell in love.

Into my life you came, bringing peace to my heart,

fire to my body, love to my soul.

In your eyes, I see myself feeling, reaching,

looking for perfect harmony.

[presenter] The words are Diane von Furstenberg's,

and they are the very essence of her new perfume,

Volcan D'Amour.

It's love, it's a promise, almost a commitment.

[Barry] What a contrast from me

to a Brazilian kinda beach boy.

She was developing an alternative life to the one she had,

and she was on a different planet.

I was devastated.

[Diane] I was reinventing my life, you know?

And that's what happens in a lifetime.

[Peter Arnell] The Bali period, to me, was an escape from a pain

that she couldn't manage,

I think she ran away from it.

I don't think it was a cop-out.

I think it was a necessary step to remove herself

from problems that maybe she couldn't face.

[Diane] Then I fell in love with a writer...

and I moved to Paris.

[Gioia] After the Brazilian that she'd picked up on the beach

she falls in love with Alain Elkann,

a rising writer living in Paris.

[Diane] All of a sudden I was the muse of a writer.

I didn't really run a business anymore,

so I fulfilled another fantasy.

I had a literary salon

and I started a small publishing house.

[Linda] She goes deeply into this literary life

and he didn't like her jazzy, zippy, vivid colors,

wonderful designed clothes, no!

So she's walking around in a gray skirt and a green cardigan.

This was not Diane.

[Gioia] I remember the first time I saw her,

I had to do a double-take.

I hardly recognized her

because she looked more like Susan Sontag than DVF.

[Tatiana] Me and my brother felt like she was a little bit

impressionable at that time, you know?

Like, she was giving up who she was

and becoming kind of enmeshed in his identity.

[Diane] Actually, Alain and I had a great relationship.

But then he had an affair with my best friend.

[Linda] Diane said, "Fazoo," and came home.

[Diane] I missed my home in America.

So I came back to New York

and that was the hardest year when I came back.

My children went to boarding school.

[Tatiana] My mom was really upset

when I went to boarding school, really upset.

[Diane] I really, really cried.

That was a big, big, big, big cry.

[Tatiana] I think my mom in a way always felt

like she was playing catch-up with me, you know?

Like, she was always trying to connect

and I was always a little bit elusive.

Sometimes she wanted more quality time,

but it was like I couldn't, I would ice her out.

Maybe it was too little, too late.

And so I think when I went to boarding school,

I think it was really devastating for her

because I was gone now and I didn't ever move back home.

I was gone and we were still playing catch-up.

[Diane] "Dear Mommy, I was wondering

"if I could have a talk with you sometime,

because, Mommy, you don't know anything about my life."

[Tatiana] I think I wrote that note, "Dear Mom,

you know absolutely nothing about me."

That's how I felt.

[Diane] I pinned that note on my board

and I looked at that note all the time,

and yet I didn't understand the note.

I did not realize that Tatiana had a disability.

[Tatiana] My family had no idea

that I was born with a neuromuscular disease.

It's basically exercise induced paralysis.

So I can't run, I can't jump, I can't do stairs.

She was born in a family that everybody was so active,

and going and running and going,

and she could not do that.

[children laughing]

So I took myself to, uh, the doctor when I was like 21 years old,

and I was diagnosed in 30 minutes, it was, like, ridiculous.

And it was, like, so affirming

because I thought that, like, I had a mental block.

[Diane] I didn't realize that for her it was so painful,

and that is something that I...

I really regret that I did not acknowledge it.

That is really one regret,

big regret that I have.

[TV presenter] The Diane von Furstenberg sportswear collection

by Puritan.

[Diane] At the time, every product that carried my name was a license.

I didn't own anything.

My brand is in the hands of all kinds of people,

nobody listens to what I want to do or say.

I didn't realize how much my identity

was linked to my brand.

Your name has been on so many products,

excuse me, but do you still design yourself?

Probably the thing that we remember you most for,

the thing that really brought you national, international fame

was your jersey wrap dress.

It was very popular, but at the end you were stuck.

That was a $4 million package that you were left with

and yet you...

She said, "I hated my life, I felt like a failure.

"I felt like a horrible mother.

I felt like a horrible businessperson."

And that's when I got cancer.

[♪ solemn piano music playing]

I was diagnosed with cancer at the base of the tongue

and the soft palate.

[Barry] I was a wreck.

But once she knew, she was determinative

and actually had no patience for my...

emotionalism over this.

[Fran] I happened to see her the night she was diagnosed with cancer.

I was sitting next to her and she said to me,

"I have cancer."

I was shocked.

I said, "When did you find this out?" "Today."

Today, the day the doctor told her she had cancer,

she was at a party.

That is a thing that not that many people would do

because you would be too flipped out.

I mean, she was a gladiator.

[Deepak Chopra] I taught her mantras and sutras

and she immediately intellectually grasped

the importance of a stress-free mind.

[Diane] I meditated, I went to radiation every day, walking.

From where I lived, to the hospital, to my office,

I realized was like a V.

So I would walk like that, the blocks,

making a perfect V for victory.

♪♪

I really think that I got the cancer

at the base of my tongue

because for last few years, I could not express myself.

That's when I realized that I had to take back my business.

[♪ bright music playing]

I am coming back from Paris

and I meet a man who has a company with Marvin Traub.

Marvin Traub was really the king of retail.

He was the chairman of Bloomingdale's

when Bloomingdale's was really it, it, it.

This man says, "I want to take you to visit a company called QVC."

[♪ station jingle plays]

♪ Q-V-C ♪

[TV presenter] Live from QVC, America's quality cable shopping channel.

Now, QVC was a little tacky.

[presenter] A special warm place in your heart

for your favorite photograph,

or a place for some potpourri and a potpourri jar.

[Diane] I mean, they sold a lot of dolls.

[presenter] Now, the way these are designed,

the pink one has little blue eyes,

the gray one has black eyes.

But I tried to be positive.

We walk into the studio, and there was Susan Lucci.

Uh, do we have a moment to talk about the botanical styling lotion?

[Diane] Susan Lucci was a huge soap opera star

and she was selling shampoo.

I can't believe it.

I mean, she sold, I don't know, $700,000 of shampoo in two hours.

And I thought, "Oh, my God, this is fantastic."

Good morning, welcome to the Diane von Furstenberg

Silk Assets Collection. Who's this, please?

[caller] [on phone] Good morning, Jane. This is Susan from Lansdowne, Baltimore.

Hello, Susan, please meet Diane von Furstenberg.

-Hello, Susan. Good morning. -[Susan] Good morning, Diane.

I did my first show

and it was unbelievable.

You see a television right there and you see the sales.

[telemarketer] Thanks for calling QVC, it's available in red.

[overlapping chatter]

[operator] Thanks for calling QVC.

I mean, we sold a million and four hundred thousand in two hours.

[Marc] QVC was very new for people

and I think at that time

there was this snobby, snooty elitism

that said that if you were a fashion designer

who used expensive fabrics and made expensive clothes

for a sophisticated customer,

that you'd be tarnished if you gave your name

and your talent to an inexpensive democratic product.

And I never believed that

and Diane definitely never believed it.

[caller] [on phone] Hi, this is Gail in Savannah, Georgia.

-Hi, Gail. -Hi, Gail.

[Gail] Hi, Diane, hi, Jane. Hello.

I love Savannah.

[Vanessa] She's very unsnobby about people

and in a way that makes her even more sort of fabulous. [chuckles]

There is no place in the world that you can find

that quality at those unbelievable prices.

[Barry] People would criticize Diane for going on cheap, cheesy QVC,

but it was great for her.

It gave her a new way of being in business.

It revived her whole career.

[Diane] I had mentioned to Barry about QVC.

Barry had left his job, so we both felt a little bit,

how can I say, outsiders, right?

And so, he took over the company.

[Lesley Stahl] So you buy QVC.

-[Barry] Yeah, yeah. -And people were surprised.

Yes, I'll say. They said I'd lost my mind.

Because you had traded this glamour life in Hollywood for some--

Yeah, for West Chester, Pennsylvania.

[Diane] Barry was back in my life in a more intense way.

I think at the end, he's my soulmate.

He was first my lover, he was then my friend.

Barry has been the consistent love in my life.

[Barry] Little old people crossing Madison Avenue.

[Diane laughs]

[Diane] My mother was living with me at the time.

I said to her, "I think I will marry Barry."

And she said something, my mother wasn't big on compliment,

but she said something that I loved.

She said, "He deserves you."

She didn't say, "Oh, yes, you know, you're 50 years old,

you should be married."

She said, "He deserves you."

Which was a wonderful compliment to both of us.

This is my off-- Oh, this is when we got married.

This is, we met at the office.

Oh, this is the restaurant we went to.

-No, no, no, no. -Yes.

No, Barry, this is my office.

[Barry] My birthday was coming up

and Diane was giving a party for Alex and Tatiana and me,

'cause we're all Aquarians.

[Diane] I said, "If you want, I'll marry you for your birthday."

[Barry] Okay, we'll get married at City Hall,

we'll tell no one,

and that's what we did.

[Diane] And these are Annie Leibovitz's pictures.

-[Barry] These are all Annie's. -[Diane] Yeah.

[Barry] Our friend Annie Leibovitz

took all of our wedding pictures as a present.

[Diane] It was very sweet, he gave me 26 wedding bands

for the 26 years that we had not been married.

[Barry] I think she's given a few away,

but she has still most of them, I hope.

[Diane] Love is life.

It's one of the best relationships I know.

And, you know, they don't even live in the same house.

[Seth Meyers] My wife and I often say,

I really hope that we could get to the point in our life

where we are as good a fit as the two of them together.

They will both cut the other one off

the second they think they're saying something stupid.

If that's not love, I don't know what is.

-That's not Coldwater. -Yes.

-No. -Yes.

-Nope. -Yes.

I mean, a lot of people just say really fast together

like, you know, Barry and Diane.

I mean to me they're separate

because I knew them separately,

but I also see them as being together,

but not so much as like a couple

in that kinda old-fashioned way.

You know, the world is now, like, immensely accommodating

to every kind of relationship.

[director] Andy Warhol said, "I guess the reason

"Diller and Diane are a couple is because she gives him straightness

and he gives her powerfulness."

What is your response to that?

Ooh, it could be the other way around.

Um...

I don't know what it means. I don't know what it means.

I think we give each other power.

It-it seems disrespectful to what we are together.

We're a great romance.

What are we going to do when people say,

isn't it just a marriage of convenience?

I know, Diane knows our relationship,

and frankly, while it is of interest to other people,

and they can speculate the rainbow, who cares?

[inaudible dialogue]

Her children and her grandchildren

became my family...

and her mother.

[inaudible dialogue]

[inaudible dialogue]

[Fran] Lily lived to be quite old.

I mean, Diane had her for a long time.

Diane would take her on these vacations on the boat.

I mean, most people I know wouldn't, like, choose,

who do you wanna invite on vacation?

Mom. Most people, no, they don't wanna invite Mom, um,

but Diane did.

[♪ gentle music playing]

[Diane] My mother lived a long life,

she died after Antonia was born.

The day I brought Antonia home for the first time

is the last time that I ever saw Lily.

She gave me her word that she was gonna meet my daughter

and she hung on, barely.

She walked into the hospital room, she met my daughter.

They have the same deep brown eyes.

It was probably the most emotionally intense day of my life

because I was bringing home my daughter

but I was saying goodbye to the woman who'd been a mother to me.

And she passed away about a week later.

[Antonia Steinberg] I definitely heard a lot of stories about Lily,

especially from my grandmother.

Those things that she just repeats,

"Fear is not an option, don't be a victim."

That actually is who she is, she is very much like that.

I think that's hugely to do with Lily.

[audience cheering]

Diane von Furstenberg revolutionized style in the 1970s

when she designed her signature wrap dress.

Now she's teamed up with her 20-something daughter-in-law, Alexandra

to relaunch that dress that your mom probably still has in her closet

and is probably still wearing.

[audience applauding]

Around '98, I was beginning to notice

the people who actually wanted to wear the wrap dress

were not the people my age...

[♪ "One Way Or Another" by Blondie playing]

...but they were the very hip girls who would wear them with sneakers.

[Talita] A whole new generation of girls

was sort of going through vintage shops

and buying this dress.

I've seen so many women who are wearing wrap dresses

and you're like, "Where did you get that?"

"Oh, this is my grandmother's."

[TV presenter 1] In the fashion world,

everything old becomes new, eventually.

[TV presenter 2] The wrap is back.

[Diane] This is a major déjà vu.

It's like 20 years later doing almost the same thing

with almost the same dress.

I was 50 years old, relaunching these dresses

to a whole cool generation.

I was totally living what I had lived when I was their age.

♪♪

I thought, I'm too old to live like old people.

I need something fresher.

I found this carriage house on West 12th Street

in the middle of butchers.

I mean, my son was horrified.

You know, you find needles in the morning.

It was a pretty bad neighborhood.

Now, of course, I didn't listen to anybody and I bought it.

Come up.

I turned it into a showroom, office, studio,

and then I bought the carriage house next door

and I turned it into this big event space,

and I would have all kinds of events.

I became the godmother of that neighborhood.

[Nathan] Her fashion shows were a bit like a happening.

It was always an interesting mix of people like, you know,

there would be some va-va-voom celebrities.

There would be a lot of kind of New York characters.

And it became like this huge event.

It was incredible.

I don't think we ever

intended for that to happen, it just happened.

[Diane] We had a lot of fashion shows all over the world.

We opened in London, and we opened in Paris,

and we opened everywhere.

At that time, I was a visionary again.

♪♪

From the loser, the nobody, I was a visionary again.

I'm thinking about our future, right?

That's what I think about every day.

[indistinct chatter]

Yeah, this one you like?

Will the brand continue, will it stand for something?

I hope it stands for something.

This is great, this is super DVF.

You enlarge it, it's great.

[Talita] It's her baby, it'll always be her baby.

She'll never actually be able to, to put a foot out the door ever.

I kind of like that, but what fabric do you see this,

to put it with this, the carnation?

-It's so pretty. -It's so pretty.

-[Talita] Here... -[Diane] This, I love this print.

[Talita] Yeah, it's my favorite.

[Diane] I think you could do another color in that.

She tries hard, I can see her that she's trying

and then, but she, like, has to come back in and like,

"Well, I don't like this print, let's tweak it a little bit."

It's like a subtle polka dot, so...

[TV presenter] Please welcome the president

of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Diane von Furstenberg.

[Diane] Now, I didn't call myself a designer

until I got the lifetime award from the CFDA.

[director] Why did it take you so long?

I don't know, I just thought by then I had deserved it.

[Karlie Kloss] At the time when I first met her,

she was the president of the CFDA

and she was already such a champion and force

for making sure that models have the support around them,

psychologically, physically, mentally, emotionally.

I want you to be strong, I want you to feel sexy.

I want you to be the woman you want to be.

I want you to smile and love life.

[cheering]

I think the need for women to progress

for her is more important than anything else.

It's just who she is, it's ingrained in her being.

[Diane] If I have a voice, it's a responsibility, it's a duty,

it's an obligation to try to make that useful.

Where I am in my life now,

I wanna be able to put myself at the service of women.

Okay.

[stylist speaking French]

[speaking French]

[line rings]

[Tatiana] [on phone] Hey.

-[Diane] Tats? -[Tatiana] Hello.

[Diane] Hi, darling, so I am, I am doing my makeup now. So...

[Tatiana] Okay, so you're about to go do the awards?

Uh, yes, and I want your blessing.

[Tatiana] Okay, well, just remember to be present,

-one person at a time... -Nice.

[Tatiana] ...just by putting it together, you've already done your job.

Be the vessel.

-Okay, so present. -[Tatiana] So...

Yeah, just stay present--

And be the, and be the vessel, wonderful,

I love you. I love you, Tats, merci.

[speaking French]

[kisses]

I speak to my children every day,

probably twice a day, at least.

They've known me since I was 23, 24, so...

You know, I am a feminist, I've always been a feminist,

and I, I have enormous faith in women.

[speaking French]

Yeah?

My role is just helping connect, expand,

inspire, and advocate.

[crowd applauding]

The DVF award started in 2010.

Since then, we have honored 66 incredible women,

badass women leaders in 186 countries.

[cheering and applause]

Like these women, my mother demonstrated

that she had the courage to fight, the strength to survive,

and the leadership to inspire.

[Nadia Murad] Both of us have been inspired by our mothers.

So when she told me about her mother,

I just, you know, felt so connected to her.

♪♪

[indistinct chatter]

What DVF exemplifies is a desire

to lift other women up in every way.

It's deeply personal and real for her

to make life better for women who have no voice,

for women who are unseen.

[inaudible dialogue]

I was very lost, uh, when I met Diane.

She was the first person who didn't see me

as a victim of the war.

Sometimes she just randomly reaches out and says,

"How are you, darling?"

And that means a lot.

[inaudible dialogue]

[Hillary] She gets it, you know, she gets the struggles

that women are facing across the world,

and I think she's made a real difference.

You could look at Diane, oh, everything's perfect,

she married the right people, she had these beautiful children.

Her life, she's famous, she's gorgeous.

But you have to look at what has created that.

And in her case, it's a story of her mother.

Being in charge is a commitment to yourself.

[♪ gentle piano music playing]

From the minute I was 22, I worked, I got pregnant,

I got married, I never stopped.

If this is my third act starting,

if I am now beginning the winter of my life,

I don't know how long of a winter I will have,

but I hope I will have a winter where I can have an impact.

-Talita. -Talita, that's good.

The, uh, Leon, the head of the table.

-[Barry] That's nice. -Vito, and then Ken.

-Okay, you like my placement? -Your placement's...

[Diane] [in French] Placement.

[Barry] I said placement, or did I say placement?

[Diane] Placement.

[Barry] Whatever.

[Diane] I don't really like the word "retired,"

but now it's about legacy.

I mean, what have I left behind?

The biggest thing I've left behind is my family.

Hi!

-Oh, you are wearing a watch. -Really?

Yours.

I know, I know, and what did I write in the back?

"Leon, enjoy every moment of your life, love DD, 2019."

-Right, isn't that adorable? -Yep.

[Diane] They will continue my life.

Just like I continued for my mother and I continued for my grandmother.

-Hi. -Hey.

[Diane moans]

You're the sweetest, the best.

You came first.

-You just, you just deliver. -On time. [chuckles]

Hi.

[Diane exclaims] Oh...

[both speaking French]

[Diane] No, it was a movie, it was Love...

-Love... -Love Actually.

[Diane] The adventure of...

my own life has been incredible,

and I would like my life to be useful,

not only to my family

or to my work, but also to others.

Somehow my life has been a conduit.

For whatever reason,

I had a voice very, very early on.

And therefore, I have used that voice

to the best I could.

[breathing heavily]

So it's not finished on purpose

because I don't wanna be finished until somebody goes in.

[director] So where are we going?

[Diane] In, in the cemetery.

My resting place...

where I will become a mushroom.

[birds cawing]

This is where I come every day.

[director] Now why do you come here every day?

Because it's so reassuring.

It's such a good spot.

Sunset goes there, peaceful.

[director] Do you think about death often?

All the time.

All the time.

But always have.

But with zero fear.

They say, uh...

"Life is a journey and death is the destination."

So we die for sure.

So I can't even understand people who don't think about it.

But my husband, he doesn't wanna think about it.

I don't think I could live without thinking that I could die anytime,

because that allows me to have more gratitude

and to enjoy life.

You see, you'll come and visit me here.

[chuckles]

[♪ "She's A Rainbow" by The Rolling Stones playing]

♪♪

♪ She comes in colors everywhere ♪

♪ She combs her hair ♪

♪ She's like a rainbow ♪

♪ Coming, colors in the air ♪

♪ Oh, everywhere ♪

♪ She comes in colors ♪

♪ Have you seen her all in gold? ♪

♪ Like a queen in days of old ♪

♪ She shoots colors all around ♪

♪ Like a sunset going down ♪

♪ Have you seen a lady fairer? ♪

♪ She comes in colors everywhere ♪

♪ She combs her hair ♪

♪ She's like a rainbow ♪

♪ Coming, colors in the air ♪

♪ Oh, everywhere ♪

♪ She comes in colors ♪

[♪ scatting]

[♪ song ends]

[♪ gentle music playing]

♪♪

[♪ music fades]

[♪ bright peppy music playing]

♪♪

♪♪

[♪ music fades out]