DESIGNER Furstenberg remains dazzling force in fashion

The comfortable little wrap dress has undergone few changes over the years.
SCRIPPS HOWARD
Diane von Furstenberg knows the secret of her success. "I know women," she says. "I used to design for the woman I wanted to become-the great woman in her 30s. Then I became that woman. And now I design for the woman that I was."
The 56-year-old princess, mother and fashion icon is curled up like a Siamese cat on a buff-toned two-seater sofa in the offices at Holt Renfrew. She is all legs and high-heeled boots. Wearing one of her signature wrap dresses and a trim, butter-soft, white leather jacket, this woman, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, inspires. If this is what a grandmother looks like these days, well, bring it on.
It's obvious she's comfortable in her own skin. It's part of her charisma. From the photos in her 1998 autobiography, "Diane: A Signature Life" (Simon & amp; Schuster), it appears it was always thus. One picture, taken in Geneva where von Furstenberg was studying economics in college, captures the tunic-clad 20-year-old reclining poolside. She engages the camera with the assurance of someone twice her age. "I was never a teenager, even when I was a teenager," says the designer.
Born Dec. 31, 1946, in Brussels, the designer now calls Cloudwalk, a pastoral property in Connecticut, home No. 1 (No. 2 is a pied- & agrave;-terre in Paris).
In the beginning
Von Furstenberg launched her company of little dresses in 1972. She so wowed Diana Vreeland, the legendary editor of Vogue, that she penned her a personal letter.
"I think your clothes are absolutely smashing," the doyenne wrote. "I think the fabrics, the prints, the cut are all great. This is what we need. We hope to do something very nice for you." That letter was sent after the then-24-year-old had cold-called her for an appointment to show her a dozen wrap dresses.
Vreeland recognized von Furstenberg's revolutionary fashion item for what it was: a sexy, spirited, no-maintenance piece of clothing that perfectly suited the thirty-something sophisticate.
By the mid-seventies, the designer was a fixture at New York's Studio 54 and her face was being plastered across the cover of Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal. New York magazine declared her and her then-husband, Prince Eduard Egon von und zu Furstenberg, "The couple that has everything."
New venture
By about 1977, she had sold five million of her dresses. By the early eighties, the designer had expanded to a cosmetics and fragrance company, a home furnishings business, a licensing business and a couture collection. Sales were well over $1 billion. Then, in 1983, she sold her company, and shortly after packed her bags for Paris. There she opened a publishing house and took a sabbatical from fashion. A decade later, the runway was full of Diane von Furstenberg-inspired clothes. So along with her daughter-in-law, Alexandra, she returned to the rag trade in 1997. "She understood the nostalgia for the wrap was one thing, too much retro was another," the designer has said of her son's wife. Together, they modernized von Furstenberg's original idea. Today, the dress remains a coveted find at vintage shops. Elisabeth Mason gets loads of calls asking whether she has any of the classic wraps in stock at her Toronto Paper Bag Princess store. She's out right now, although her L.A. boutique has a snappy gray and black one selling for $295. The shopkeeper understands the appeal of the dress that Diane built. "Its power was in that it was so forgiving," she says. "It hugged the waist. It was flattering to the bust line and it had this nice flirty skirt. And it is just so comfortable. It's like the dress with the elastic waist." Flare magazine editor-in-chief Suzanne Boyd attributes the long-lasting appeal of von Furstenberg's designs to their simplicity. "I think what is so inherently sexy about that dress is you give it one pull and it'll fall off," she says.
By about 1977, she had sold five million of her dresses. By the early eighties, the designer had expanded to a cosmetics and fragrance company, a home furnishings business, a licensing business and a couture collection. Sales were well over $1 billion. Then, in 1983, she sold her company, and shortly after packed her bags for Paris. There she opened a publishing house and took a sabbatical from fashion. A decade later, the runway was full of Diane von Furstenberg-inspired clothes. So along with her daughter-in-law, Alexandra, she returned to the rag trade in 1997. "She understood the nostalgia for the wrap was one thing, too much retro was another," the designer has said of her son's wife. Together, they modernized von Furstenberg's original idea. Today, the dress remains a coveted find at vintage shops. Elisabeth Mason gets loads of calls asking whether she has any of the classic wraps in stock at her Toronto Paper Bag Princess store. She's out right now, although her L.A. boutique has a snappy gray and black one selling for $295. The shopkeeper understands the appeal of the dress that Diane built. "Its power was in that it was so forgiving," she says. "It hugged the waist. It was flattering to the bust line and it had this nice flirty skirt. And it is just so comfortable. It's like the dress with the elastic waist." Flare magazine editor-in-chief Suzanne Boyd attributes the long-lasting appeal of von Furstenberg's designs to their simplicity. "I think what is so inherently sexy about that dress is you give it one pull and it'll fall off," she says.
Minor changes