Diane von Furstenberg (Q5545)
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fashion label
- DVF
- Dianevonfurstenberg
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Diane von Furstenberg |
fashion label |
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Statements
1997
designer
intern
head designer
creative director
commercial commissions
After three years, DVF’s President and Chief Executive, Gabby Hirata, has left the company. Under Hirata, the brand expanded its customer base; bringing it to Gen Z and offering more affordable price points. Hirata, along with the young co-chairwoman Talita Von Furstenberg, were always present at market appointments to walk press and buyers through the new collection; now that Hirata has departed it seems that’s no longer the case.But even without a business-minded strategist helming the brand, DVF is doing just fine. The brand is sticking to what it does best, reinventing hits from Diane von Furstenberg’s archive but making them more wearable for the contemporary fashion scene. The wrap dress remains an integral part of the aesthetic, with four out of 13 looks in this new collection comprising some version of the model; elsewhere, floral prints from the archive were reworked in zesty new colors like cobalt blue and burnt orange. Recent additions to the lineup include party-ready dresses made of a heavy viscose jersey, along with more everyday pieces like knit suits and sweaters.
12 October 2023
Next year marks the 50th anniversary of Diane von Furstenberg’s iconic wrap dress. DVF’s current co-chairwoman—and Diane’s granddaughter—Talita von Furstenberg is certain that the piece’s legacy will continue during her reign at the brand. The resort collection offers a variety of wrap dresses; alongside the classic jersey fabrication, there are also knit versions, a faux wrap dress, and even easy-to-wear separates. The moody color palette is full of purple, greens, and browns, all inspired by French film noir, as well as black and white snapshots of DVF.But while Talita is ensuring that her grandmother’s influence stays intact at the brand, she’s also beginning to incorporate more of her personality into the collection. Half of the fall offering is made up of new styles in novel recycled fabrics that use less water and produce fewer emissions; they will allow the co-chairwoman to bring in a new price point without forgoing the quality and feel of the clothes. “We’re proud of our fabrics, which feel comparable to Max Mara” said Talita. “Diane even said maybe we should charge more, but I said we have to make sure it’s at an affordable price value for our customers.”Also new this season is a new print that incorporates the three most iconic initials in fashion into a subtle chain link monogram. “You can kind of tell that it is DVF but it doesn’t read so ‘logo-mania’,” Talita added. Come fall, we could soon see the DVF monogram all over NYC.
7 August 2023
One look at Talita Von Furstenberg’s Instagram will signal that she’s a summer girl. Most photos include a nonchalant Talita in a printed maxi dress off some European coast, so it wasn’t surprising when beachwear was the inspiration for the spring 2023 collection. “In April, people are dying for summer, so they want to wear beachwear like easy maxi dresses. The collection could be worn at the beach with bathing suits and also dressed up for when you’re back in the city with accessories like sandals,” she said.Diane’s signature prints still lie at the heart of the collection, with floral designs pulled from the archive, but young Gen Z customers can lean into geometric tiles and animal prints that come in bright blues, yellows, and oranges that will get them excited for the coming warm weather. And to ensure that these clothes can survive the New York City humidity, everything will come in breathable and airy fabrics like cotton and jersey. Even if you have no plans for a European getaway anytime soon, you might be a step closer with these clothes.
13 February 2023
If last season the Diane von Furstenberg team looked to the archives, this season, they had their eyes set to the present day and the future. A new range of surrealist prints joins the roster of DVF stalwarts like vintage florals and geometric tiles, like their new “eye of the rose” print. “It’s a rose but if you look closely, it also looks like an eye,” said Gabby Hirata, the CEO at DVF. “The whole collection is playful like this, and the prints are very much conversation [starters].”Even though the DVF team is looking to the future in their rebrand, their signature pieces that have been in the making for 50 years, like the puff sleeve minis, mesh midis, and iconic wrap dresses, remain at the heart of the collection. Most of all, their muse remains Diane von Furstenberg. “All of my prints and designs are in my archive,” the designer herself explained. “I put it all in the vault so that my young team, my young CEO, and my young creatives could follow the codes, but do it in their own way,” explained von Furstenberg. Her functional and affordable evening wear, which has been one of DVF’s best-selling pieces post-pandemic, returns in classic jerseys in a palette of classic reds, royal blues, midnight blacks, and lace prints just in time for the holidays.“I always wanted to focus on the woman I wanted to be,” von Furstenbeg recalled. “Then I became the woman I wanted to be, and I became that woman because of the dress that I would go and sell to women all around the world.” The current-day DVF team seems to be following the playbook that’s worked so well for Diane. These days the team might be younger, but the design mantra remains the same.
6 December 2022
For the fall collection, Talita von Furstenberg and CEO Gabby Hirata were looking to the seventies, specifically Venice in the 1970’s, which not coincidentally happens to be where the DVF awards took place earlier this month. “I thought about the collection as a trip to Venice and packing things that don’t wrinkle in a suitcase,” Talita said during an appointment in the company’s Meatpacking District headquarters. The Venetian inspiration was most obvious in colorful prints inspired by ceilings and tile panels the team discovered during a recent visit.While the DVF team is still working on their rebranding to appeal to a younger generation, the signature wrap dress that rose to popularity 50 years ago remains an iconic piece in their collections. It has since been reimagined and is available in various lengths, from mini to maxi, and in fabrics like viscose, and the special double-lined jersey that was used in the original wrap dresses. “We hadn’t been using platforms like Shopify before, but now we’ve been getting all this data and we finally see what works,” explained Talita. “And we’re putting this into the design process so we can give women what they want to wear.” A subtle polka dot print with tiny roses, inspired by an archival print from a previous Diane von Fursternberg collection was a highlight. Along with the classic wrap dress, Talita has introduced a new wrap jumpsuit, which is quickly becoming a new DVF signature. “The overall desire at DVF is to make effortless clothes that you put on and feel confident,” Talita explains before adding, “and the jumpsuit is very flattering.” Another standout of the collection was the power suit, which they produced in a bold color palette that included gem-colored tones like a deep ruby red and a vibrant sapphire blue, modernized in a wrinkle-proof knit fabric. This power suit does not need to be steamed or ironed before heading into the office — or the coffee shop that may double as an office — and can be easily paired with a basic white tee and flats.“I would wear the power suit with [this] pair of Venetian slides I just got in navy velvet,” Talita reveals. A perfectly Gen-Z way approach to modern dressing, fitting for strolling the streets of Venice or anywhere else in the world.
6 September 2022
It’s been three years since a Diane Von Furstenberg collection has cycled through the Vogue Runway feed, but don’t blame the pandemic. Team DVF has undergone a thorough restructuring, although it’s still a family affair. Talita Von Furstenberg, the founder’s 23-year-old granddaughter, is in the co-chairwoman seat, and Gabby Hirata, whose background is in production management, is its 33-year-old CEO. Together, the duo is reimagining the brand for young millennials and Gen Z.Online since birth, their new target audience has grown up on images from the past. TVF and Hirata are making the most of that. The young Von Furstenberg recently appeared in an ad campaign reviving one of her grandmother’s original designs. Her Instagram post promoting the two-piece wrap top and flared pant set includes aVoguephoto of Cheryl Tiegs in the 1974 prototype. It’s also the last look in the slideshow here. There are many more vintage photos to recirculate as the seasons come and go.But Talita is very much her grandmother’s granddaughter, happy in front of the camera and often in photogenic places. Meaning, the design team needn’t lean on the archive overmuch. What she likes and wears is likely to connect with her demographic. Floral and graphic prints are the brand’s message this season. There are wrap dresses, of course, but in the lookbook lineup, the most Talita-y dress would seem to be the hot pink and red polka dot babydoll. It’ll be fun on the dance floor this summer.
16 June 2022
“It’s not a formula for dressing, it’s a formula for living,” Diane von Furstenberg declared. In her 13 years as the head of the CFDA—she hands the torch to Tom Ford tonight at the annual Fashion Awards ceremony—and her 45 as a fashion entrepreneur, von Furstenberg has become quite handy with a quote. She laughingly calls herself “The Oracle.” Sandra Campos, her CEO, is the “boss lady,” and Sabrina Shahnazarian, who had her official coming out as brand director at this morning’s appointment, is the “bohemian designer.”Together at DVF headquarters, the trio presented Resort, which is season two of the brand’s new concept. It puts an emphasis on “solutions dressing,” i.e. wrinkle-resistant, packable materials like fluid jersey and merino wool; versatile pieces like a wrap blouse that can be worn front-to-back or back-to-front for a less revealing look; and complementary prints designed for easy layering.By easy, von Furstenberg and her collaborators don’t mean basic or plain, as the ground-floor boutique on West 14th Street, where Spring with its riot of color and pattern is currently hanging, makes clear. As for Resort, an abstract agate swirl is extroverted on a mesh wrap dress, but absolutely statement-making on a water-resistant trench. Ditto the brushstroke motif, which appeared on mix-and-match separates very much in the DVF canon, but looked arrestingly bold on a wool coat.For all the vibrancy of the prints, one of the most winning looks was a cardigan dress and pajama pants in glossy black sequins stitched to slinky jersey. Minimalists need easy solutions, too.
3 June 2019
Diane von Furstenberg CEO Sandra Campos sat in with the designer at a private showing of the label’s Fall collection today, and together they presented the new DVF formula. In Von Furstenberg’s view, the brand had strayed: First, it became too mass, then it swung avant-garde, and the customer got confused. “If I have made any contribution, I want it to be that we were the friend in the closet. This is about going back to our core,” she said. Campos elaborated: “We serve women’s needs.”Put into practice, that means a streamlining of the offering, with an emphasis on the wrap dress—which turns 45 in 2019—in signature fabrics like silk jersey and a jacquard knit made by a woman in Bologna, Italy, whom Von Furstenberg has known since the line’s beginnings. Press clippings from that 45-year span were made into a photo print that appeared on a mock-neck knit, a wrap dress, and a skirt with an easy elastic-band waist. Wear the dress with or without the sweater underneath, with or without the slip over the dress. The idea is to eliminate the tough decisions we all have to make standing in front of the clothes rack every morning—or at least to simplify them. Von Furstenberg will keep the concept interesting by adding new prints each season. “We’re a print factory,” she said.Von Furstenberg sees in Campos the exemplary DVF woman: “She’s the boss lady. She works; she’s raised three kids.” But Von Furstenberg is cultivating another kind of client too. TVF, her college-age granddaughter Talita’s capsule collection, launches in April.
14 February 2019
Diane von Furstenberg is going to have a very big year. The Statue of Liberty Museum, where she’s the chair of the fundraising campaign, is set to open in May. And the designer is at the center of the action in a 2019 HBO documentary about the national landmark to boot. As busy as she is, she’s emphasizing synergies for Pre-Fall. Of her new collection, she says, “I wanted to celebrate freedom and liberty.”Those concepts have been central to the success of the Diane von Furstenberg brand since she came up with her original wrap dress concept in 1974—45 years ago. The wrap plays a supporting role here, however, in favor of a focus on slip dressing and pajama sets; both concepts are trending. The strength of Von Furstenberg’s approach to them is her prints. Bold pattern is another constant at DVF, but two, in particular, this season have a special charm: the painted lemon motif of a lace-edged slip and the Matisse-ish swimmers of the matching pajama separates. They’ll be conversation starters at the museum’s opening gala and other summery gatherings as the year wears on.
9 January 2019
Diane von Furstenberg took pioneer women as her Spring theme: “Nathan [Jenden, her chief design officer and vice president of creative, currently on medical leave] told me, ‘You’re a pioneer,’ so why not?” Jenden meant pioneer in the entrepreneurial sense—Von Furstenberg’s frontier was New York City, not the Wild West—but as it turns out, DVF wore petticoats back when she was a newlywed, and they were not unlike the one she showed under a wrap dress at today’s presentation. Her collections don’t typically include such homespun fare, but that crafty petticoat was a welcome development, one that was echoed in the special eyelet lining on a black-and-white cow-pattern shirtdress with pannier-style volumes in the skirt, among other printed cotton frocks.Designers have been talking here and there about “humble” materials this week—they feel like a valid, nonfrivolous response to our fraught times—and Von Furstenberg seems at least partially in tune with that idea. Elsewhere, she interpreted the pioneer notion more broadly; there was, for example, a blush peach pantsuit for the gal living “a man’s life in a woman’s body.” Otherwise, she shrugged the concept off entirely. Irrespective of theme—she’s never really gone in for them, anyway—there were two highlights. The first, a coral and fuchsia halter-neck dress with a dance floor–ready fluted hem, exhibited the signature DVF flair for color. The second came in a flower-printed mesh with an empire waistline. Von Furstenberg likened it to something the Empress Josephine might have worn on the American plains. What a sight that would’ve been.
9 September 2018