YouSaid · the spoken record

Diane von Furstenberg

lines on the record: 30
first: 2021-12-14
most recent: 2021-12-14
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I think the most important thing in life is the relationship you have with yourself. Once you have a good relationship with yourself, any other relationship is a plus and not a must. And the second advice is to be as true to yourself as you possibly can. And it's not easy. And you have to accept and own things you may not like, but the more you could be you, the happier you would be.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like nature, nothing ever stopped. So you could be super happy in one minute and then something happens. So it's just living. It's the joy of life.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, yes, first I was on the board of the foundation of the Statue of Liberty Ellis Island. And the first thing I did was raise money to create a museum for the Statue of Liberty. So I got very close to her, Lady Liberty. I didn't want to do it. I really didn't want to, I said, if I go on another board, my husband would be so upset. And then he read my book, The Man Who Wanted to Get Me. And in my book, he read that my mother... Saying God saved me so that I can give you life by giving you life, you gave me my life back. You are therefore my torch of freedom. So he underlined that and he said, you see, you got to come and help us that you have liberty.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Knocked down. Anyway, those two guys had this dream and they saw my studio and they said, do you mind, do you think you could do a fundraising in your studio? And that's how my relationship with the neighborhood and with the Highline started. For one thing, we turned this neighborhood into historical preservation. Then somehow we convinced the high line and it was very difficult because all the developers wanted the real estate. Those same developers by the way now are so proud to be on the high line. The highline became the number one destination for tourists.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, when I started the company again in When was that game here? 97. I say, why am I renting those expensive offices uptown? Let me buy a little building downtown. And I came in this neighborhood, meetback, and full of butchers. They were only butchers. And I bought a little carriage house and I decided to make that my showroom and my office. And everybody said, what are you doing there who wants to go and work there? It smells so bad, blah, blah, blah. But I did it anyway. And then when you move to a new neighborhood, you meet your neighbors. And I met these two young guys who had a dream. And the dream was to transform this elevated railway that went from Ganzwood all the way to Javid Center. It was abandoned. And to turn it into a park. And it was going to be...”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“After I separated from the father and my children, I met Barry and we fell in love and we were together for five years. I guess that again it was the 70s and it was important for me. To experience, and so we separated and I, you know, I lived my life, but Barry and I, we kept very close. I also kept very close to my first husband. And somehow Barry and I, I think we both knew somehow at some point we would end up together. And then about 20 years ago, yeah, 20 years ago, we got married”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Gloria Steinem, for me as a feminist, she was my idol. She was my idol. Now she's a friend. And I remember she created that magazine called Ms MS, which means you were not either Miss or Misses. And I remember when I separated and then eventually divorced from my husband, the prince, I joked and I said I gave up.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That women traditionally didn't do. Yeah, so men can call a woman and I mean doing all kinds of things. So why can't a woman do that? That was the most important thing for me to be a liberated woman. But I was part of that generation.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I like to speak in general. I speak to myself and I like to speak and I like to use, yeah, I do believe, I think words are very powerful and I think that if you have a voice you should speak. Yes.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Then there's my brand. So there also I had to reset the brand and make sure it was closed because sometimes when you grow, you lose your initial spirit, your initial reason to be. And then the third part, me, is about the impact. It's about today using all the things I have, my voice, my experiences, my knowledge, my memories, my experiences, my resources, and using that in order to make other women be the woman they want to be.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, but you know, right now it was important for me. Now is the legacy moment of my life, right? Now is the time that you look back at your life. And I'm happy to see that somehow it's coherent. I was born on New Year's Eve. So every year I make resolution. So I divine my life in three columns. One is my family. One is my business and my brand and one is me. So looking back now in my life, I look at my family, you know, my two children, my five grandchildren, and I'm very proud of them. I'm very proud of who they are. I'm proud of the people they are. I'm proud that they are not banal. They're fun, they're interesting, they're generous, and they care.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's being resetted You know, I'm a very positive person. My mother was a survivor, right? So as a survivor, Life is what matters, right? As a daughter of a survivor, the minute I was born, I mean, she wasn't supposed to survive. I wasn't supposed to be born, and yet I was born. So I realized that the moment of my birth was already a victory. So anything that happened after that was a plus.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But also stores were closed, we had to close. So, I mean, it's a lot of different things at the same time. And of course, the business online. And so it was a moment to reset.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, actually, DVF has been many, many, many products over the years. After COVID and after all of the change, you know, COVID was also a moment of resetting, right? I don't want to take it. I can't say take advantage of something as negative as COVID, but we were forced to look at the business model and reset the business model.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know when it's your life? I mean, you know, it's just one day after another, day after another day. It's only when you look back that you are surprised or when you look back that you have time to say, ooh, that was great. When you're living it, you just survive. I mean, you know, a young woman, two children, I separated so quickly from my husband. And then, you know, there's a lot to do running a company. So I didn't have the time to think, am I surprised, am I what?”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Difficult time for me to see because everything until then was great and wonderful even when it wasn't great and wonderful it was still exciting but then coming back I mean and seeing the brand and the people who were in charge of the brand and they didn't care I mean there was no spirit there was no there was no messaging there was no nothing it was that was really difficult and I don't know if it's as a result of that but at the same time I also had a cancer I had a cancer at the bottom at the base of my tongue and and I think it has something to do with the fact that I couldn't express myself Anyway, so I dealt with that, and I also then dealt with taking back my name and starting again.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There always are ups and down and ups and down. I had the first phase of my life is very much American dream. I lived a true American dream. Really, I was young. I was inexperienced and I became very successful. After that, I had difficulties. I had. And then finally I ended up selling the cosmetic. And then of course by then my children are teenagers. So they went to boarding school. At that time I decided I went back to Europe. I lived in Paris for a few years. And then I came back here and then I decided and then by then my brand was really wow. It was like bad. It was in discount stores and everybody had done everything and that was difficult.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He gave me the first one, he gave me one I bought two, the second time he gave me one, I bought none. And when he died, I bought them all.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Andy Warhol did my first portrait one night we made anybody was looking for a white wall because he would take a Polaroid and then he would use the Polaroid and And pain from there, and he needed a white wall. And in my home, they had no white wall, so we went to the kitchen. And because the white wall in my kitchen was so tiny, I lifted my arm. And that was the first time he painted me. And then he painted me later for a show that he was planning to do in the 80s called Beauties.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, New York City in the 70s was many things. For one thing, it was very dirty, it was very dangerous, and it was very cheap. And therefore, a lot of artists were here. It was a very exciting time. It was a time that people wanted freedom. We thought, our generation thought, we invented freedom, which of course we didn't. And it was fun. And there were a lot of creative people, and Andy Wall was everywhere, and there was a lot of other people, and it was fun. But I mean, it's always fun when you're young.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, then I licensed it. And then I, you know, I mean, life is like you go as you go. So I license my dress business to a company that I thought had more experience than I did. And they continued to develop it. And I decided, now I'm going to be Estella. And I started a cosmetic company.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are no such thing as going to the top top and continuing to go to the top. Also, I think it's really important. I always make a point to tell people that sometimes when you are at the very top, that time I was on the cover of Newsweek and on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and everybody was buying my dresses and I was acclaimed as the big success. I myself already knew. That things were so easy because, in the way I had saturated the market, you know?”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh yeah, everybody asked, and then she had it removed. She had one number and then crossed and another number. I mean, for me it was, you know, it wasn't odd because I had always seen it like that. I knew she had been to the camp. I mean, you know, there was a little talk about it, but she shielded me from it all without making it a big mystery.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How do you survive? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, very, very, very few people survived. She survived. She was 22. I mean, she got arrested. She was 21. She stayed 14 months. And she really got arrested very late. It was May 44. But she worked while she was there. She worked at the Krupp factory. So when you were working, they wouldn't kill you. So that's the first thing. And then after that, there was the famous death march, and they went and they walked to another camp, Ravensbrook. A lot of people died on the march. She thought she was going to die on the march, but she didn't. And then after that, as they were losing the war, they pushed back more, and then she ended up in another camp. And then one day the Germans had gone. Then the Russian came and raped every girl. And then after that, the Americans arrived.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For winning his primary. Yes, but then I discovered that it was the month of March and the months of March is usually when they won subscription renewals. And so they would think that maybe I would be more attractive.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You wrap your body So it started from these little sweaters that ballerinas wear, you know, when they get cold. And it's like a kimono, right? A Japanese kimono. But it's very tight. And because it was Jersey, you wrap it very tight. Was the difference, and it was just the wrap dress, and it was printed because I was in this print factory. So it was a wrapped, first it was a wrapped up with a skirt. And it did really well. And then I said, I've got to turn it into a dress. And then it became a dress. And before I knew at the age of 26, I was making $25,000 wrap dresses a week.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think I discovered so much. I discovered New York. I discovered all these young designers. And when I went back, all I could think about is how do I get back to New York? How do I get back to New York? And when I went back to work in the factory, all of a sudden I looked at everything there and I said, oh, there is my door. There's an opportunity. Let me try to make some easy, easy little dresses that I can then go and sell in America. And that's how I started. So I would stay late at night with a pattern maker and make some samples and so on.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was really a craft, and so I didn't think that any of this was going to be useful to me at all, but it was very interesting. I then went to America for the first time to visit my boyfriend. My mother gave me a ticket to go to New York and visit him. And I discovered New York and I couldn't believe it. I mean, I couldn't believe how I said, I have to come back here. And also while I was in New York because my boyfriend then, he was a young, very attractive prince, so he was very much, you know, in demand in New York. He was very good looking. And because he was in demand and I came as his girlfriend, all the designer wanted to lend me clothes and blah, blah, blah. And so while I was here, I mean, I stayed about a month.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I was 20, I went out of college and I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew the kind of woman I wanted to be. I wanted to be a woman in charge. So, which though is going to be my door? So I thought maybe fashion. So at first I worked in Paris for fashion photographer's agent. And that got me, wow, I discovered the world of fashion. And then I met the father of a friend of the brother of my boyfriend, whatever in Italy. And he said, you know, you should come and discover the other side of fashion where we make fashion. So then I discovered how, you know, all about printing, you know, how you buy artwork and how you put it in repeat and how you print it and you work with the colorist and learn how to do a color palette.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, people say I created the wrap dress, which is true, but really the wrap dress created me. Because of that dress, I became the woman I wanted to be. I became independent. By being independent, it paid for my children education. It paid for my house in the country. It paid for my apartment. It made me free and it made me liberated. And it was the time of the women's liberation. And because it was a dress, the more confident I became and the more confident I was passing on this confidence to other women through this little dress that I would go around and wrap around women's bodies. And so in a sense, That I look back, now that I'm an older woman and so on, I look back, it's almost like I was a conduit. You know, I was a conduit for confidence for many generation of women.”
2021-12-14 · The David Rubenstein Show · Diane von Furstenberg · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source