Fifty years ago, a Belgian immigrant would forever change the way we looked a fashion with a brand-new design — the wrap dress. In the decades that followed, Diane von Furstenberg has done nothing less than shatter glass ceilings with her culture-changing designs, but her journey to the top wasn’t always as glamorous as it may have seemed.
In the new documentary, “Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge,” Oscar-winning director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, along fellow director Trish Dalton, give a behind-the-scenes look at the fashion revolutionary as she prepares for a new museum exhibit, showcasing her vast life’s work.
“This is a story of an immigrant who came to America with a suitcase full of dresses and ideas and her wrap dress became this phenomenon,” Obaid-Chinoy said on “Morning Joe” Monday. “But her life beyond a fashion designer — it’s been a life in which she’s given to women, opened up doors for other women and really lived life on her own terms…”
The child of a Holocaust survivor in Belgium, von Furstenberg eventually settled in New York where she introduced her iconic wrap dress in 1974. She would go on to establish her multi-million-dollar fashion empire, pioneering a path in a male-dominated realm. She married a German prince, then a mogul, while also becoming a philanthropist in her own right.
“Diane became a businesswoman at a time when women needed men to co-sign for something as small as a credit card,” Obaid-Chinoy said. “When she was coming up in the world of business, women weren’t even in the conversation … the amount of sexism that existed in that world for her to break through — wearing a dress and fishnet stockings — at a time when women were told to be more like men if they wanted to be taken seriously … I think she wanted to change the way women were looked at, the potential of women … I think that story is important to be told today to young women — be yourself and find your own path, find your own yellow brick road.”
The documentary illuminates the way von Furstenberg’s dress became synonymous with the freedom movement and women’s professional independence. “She was creating fashion at a time when fashion was inaccessible to a vast majority of people,” Obaid-Chinoy added.
“The adventure of my own life has been incredible,” von Furstenberg, 77, recounted in the film. “I became the woman I wanted to be … I was having a man’s life in a woman’s body.”But by the 80s, her business began to wane, at which point she revived her wrap dress design for a successful second act in the 90s. By the time COVID hit, von Furstenberg was compelled to lay off 60 percent of the corporate and retail staff in the U.S., Britain and France, according to the New York Times.
Now, with a new executive and creative team, she has pivoted her brand’s direction with plans to streamline the company while engaging in popular collaborations with major retailers like Target.
Throughout the turbulence of the industry, von Furstenberg has learned to survive, keep going — and celebrate the wisdom and beauty that emerge with age.
“I don’t understand why so many people do not embrace age, I’ve always been attracted by wrinkles,” von Furstenberg remarked in the film. “Age means living.”
She continued: “You shouldn’t say how old you are, you should say how long have you lived. If you take all your wrinkles away, the map of your life is different. I don’t really want to erase anything from my life.”
“Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge” premieres on Hulu on June 25.
Bianca Brosh