Legendary
fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg’s mother was in Auschwitz 18
months before she was born. Born Diane Simone Michelle Halfin on
December 31, 1946 in Belgium, her parents, Leon and Liliane Halfin, were
both Jewish. Her mother’s greatest gift to her was the conviction that
“fear is not an option,” Von Furstenberg said at an United Jewish
Appeal-Federation of New York event. At the same event, she added that
she has tried to teach her own children that independence are among the
first steps to freedom.Von Furstenberg attended school in Switzerland, Spain and England, and in 1965 started at the University of Madrid. She transferred to the University of Geneva after one year, where she majored in economics. While there, she met Prince Eduard Egon von Furstenburg, who inherited the Fiat fortune. The two married in July 1969 – she designed her own wedding dress. Although she was not popular with her fiancé’s family due to her religion, she became Diane, Princess of Furstenberg. “I was this banal little Jewish girl who married this good-looking hotshot prince,” she told The Wall Street Journal. The couple had two children before splitting in 1974.
Following the break up, von Furstenberg promised herself she would become financially self-sufficient. She started out working for various large-scale production clothes manufactures. In 1972 she started her own business in New York City, and opened up a showroom on Seventh Avenue. Her father and a friend helped her get started financially. Her most successful piece, the wrap dress, has become an iconic fashion design. Her company’s sales topped one million dollars after only a few months. By 1976 over a million of her signature dresses had been sold, and she landed on the cover of both The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek, the latter dubbing her “the most marketable woman since Coco Chanel.”
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