Diane von Furstenberg: A Life Unwrapped

A sweeping biography of one of the most influential and controversial legends of late twentieth-century fashion, an iconic designer whose colorful creations, including the “wrap dress,” captured the modern feminist spirit.

The daughter of a Holocaust survivor and wife of an Austrian nobleman, Diane von Furstenberg burst onto New York’s fashion scene in 1969, and within a few years became an international sensation with her colorful wrap dress in printed jersey. Embraced by millions of American women of all ages, sizes, and shapes, the dress became a cult object and symbol of women’s liberation, tied inexorably to the image of youth, independence, and sex Diane herself projected.

In this masterful biography, Gioia Diliberto brings Diane’s extraordinary life into focus, from her post-World-War-II childhood in Belgium, through her rise to the top of the fashion world during the decadent seventies and glamorous go-go eighties, to her humiliating failures both professional and personal, and her remarkable comeback in the nineties. Like Coco Chanel, Diane has always been her own best advertisement. Morphing from a frizzy brunette outsider in a sea of sleek blondes to a stunning pop cultural icon, she embodied the brand she created—“the DVF woman,” a model of self-sufficiency, sensuality, and confidence.

Diliberto’s captivating, balanced portrait, based on scores of interviews with Diane’s family, friends, lovers, employees, and the designer herself, explores von Furstenberg’s relationships with her husbands and lovers, and illuminates fashion’s evolution from rare luxury to marketing monster and the development of a uniquely American style. Lively and insightful, the book also explores the larger world of the nation’s elite, where fashion, culture, society, politics, and Hollywood collide. Diane von Furstenberg is a modern fable of self-invention, fame, wealth, failure, and success that mirrors late-twentieth century America itself.

A sweeping biography of one of the most influential and controversial legends of  New York fashion—the iconic designer whose creations captured the modern feminist spirit

In 1969, when women's liberation and equal rights were on everyone's lips, twenty-two-year-old Diane von Furstenberg set out to have a career of her own. The daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Diane grew up a frizzy-haired, gap-toothed outsider in Brussels. Improbably, she became the wife of Austrian nobleman Egon von Furstenberg, moved to New York City, and quickly made herself a fixture of an outrageous fashion scene. Pregnant and lugging a suitcase of samples to department stores, Diane started a dress business with three styles—and in 1973, stormed onto the national stage with the invention of the wrap dress.

Embraced for its flattering style by millions of American women of all ages, sizes, and shapes, the dress became a cult object, tied inexorably to the image Diane projected of youth, independence, and sex—"the DVF woman," a model of self-sufficiency, sensuality, and confidence. In this masterful biography, Gioia Diliberto delves beyond that woman to bring Diane's extraordinary life into focus, from her post–World War II childhood in Belgium, through her rise to the top of the fashion world during the decadent seventies and glamorous go-go eighties, to her humiliating failures both professional and personal, and her remarkable comeback in the nineties. 

Drawing on interviews with Diane's family, friends, lovers, employees, and the designer herself, Diliberto creates a captivating portrait of von Furstenberg through her relationships and role in the development of a uniquely American style. As befits the story of a clothing designer who became a stunning pop cultural icon, the book also explores fashion's evolution from rare luxury to marketing monster, and the larger world of the nation's elite—an exclusive club where fashion, culture, society, politics, and Hollywood collide. Lively and insightful, Diane von Furstenberg is a modern fable of self-invention, fame, wealth, failure, and success, pulled together with the style and assuredness of a DVF dress. 

“Un-put-downable.” - Wall Street Journal

“A fresh look at DVF’s life...as powerfully seductive as the designer’s iconic wrap dress.” - DuJour

“Fascinating.” - New York Times Sunday Book Review

“Absorbing . . . an all-access pass into the life of this enterprising artist [and] a lively portrait of a bold and determined woman as colorful and alluring as her fashions.” - Chicago Tribune

“A compelling portrait.” - Atlanta Journal-Constitution

One of BUSTLE’s “11 Women In Nonfiction Who Are Totally Killing It” “Diliberto captures Diane’s determination in the early days to build a fashion brand and her great success striking the exact right note at the right moment with the creation of her modern wrap dress.” - Providence Journal

“Diliberto’s biography of a determined yet often self-destructive woman adds to the legacy this force for fashion and female autonomy has bequeathed to the world.” - Booklist

“Unwrap and enjoy.” - Library Journal

“Fast and engrossing...a fun and insightful read about both the woman and the larger fashion universe.” - Chicago Business Journal

“The book [is] a winner. . . . A roller coaster life, full of love and work, told as a juicy tale.” - Library Journal

“Fascinating . . . examines the designer’s rise to stardom from her postwar, European childhood to the personal scandals of her adulthood through a feminist lens.” - Bustle

“Thoroughly reported . . . rich with delicious details . . . a timely tale of a woman who knows what other women want: Everything.” - USA Today

“A complex and often incredibly fun portrait . . . Diliberto deftly highlights the heady social whirl of Paris . . . [A] handsomely imagined story.” - Los Angeles Times on I Am Madame X

“Postwar Paris and the ruthlessly competitive atelier of Coco Chanel come to glamorously gritty life.” - Vogue on The Collection

“Explores the pulse and impulses of the designer.” - Daily Mail (London)

“In the rarefied world of capital-F Fashion, there are . . . designers . . . who have changed the way women have come to think about the image they present to the world via the clothes they wear. Few epitomize this clothing-as-self mantra as fully as Diane von Furstenberg . . . In a thorough and balanced look at von Furstenberg’s life, Diliberto not only probes the pain caused by her roller-coaster professional and personal mishaps but tallies the triumphs that came through sheer perseverance and an unwavering belief in her abilities and vision . . . Diliberto’s biography of a determined yet often self-destructive woman adds to the legacy this force for fashion and female autonomy has bequeathed to the world.” - Booklist

“A fresh and incisive look at the first--and most intriguing--of [Hemingway’s] four wives.” - The Boston Globe on Paris Without End

“Diliberto’s prose . . . sings . . . leaves the reader with a vivid sense of the beauty in question, in both the painter’s version, and the lady’s herself.” - San Francisco Chronicle on I Am Madame X

“A bittersweet modern love story [that] reads as easily as a novel . . . their intimacy and candour was the raw material for Hemingway’s great early short stories which achieved a powerful new realism about he relations between men and women.” - Vogue on Paris Without End

“Fascinating….A detailed, grittier portrait of the woman Hemingway loved and left.” - Newsday on Paris without End