Fashion designer, founder, and chair of the company that bears her name, Diane von Furstenberg rose to prominence in 1974 with the debut of her, now iconic, wrap dress. Her company is recognized world-wide as a luxury fashion brand celebrated for its elegance, glamour, and distinctive vocabulary of print and color.
In 2005, von Furstenberg received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Counsel of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) for her contributions to the field. One year later, she became CFDA’s President and, in 2015, was named Chair, a position she held until 2019. In 2014, she published a memoir, The Woman I Wanted to Be, which has been translated into six languages. In 2015, she was named as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, and in 2018, she received the CFDA’s Swarovski Award for Positive Change.
Von Furstenberg’s commitment to innovation and excellence in fashion design is equally matched by her passion to empower women through mentorship and philanthropy. For more than a decade, she has served on the board of Vital Voices, an ambassador program that
supports the development of female leaders and entrepreneurs around the world. In 2010, with the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation, she created the DVF Awards to honor and provide grants to extraordinary women who have displayed courage, strength, and leadership in their commitment to various causes of social import.
Additionally, von Furstenberg actively pursues philanthropic work in both New York City and Los Angeles. Von Furstenberg and her husband Barry Diller contributed generously to the reclamation and expansion of the High Line, an elevated linear park built on a historic freight rail line on Manhattan’s west side. In 2016, von Furstenberg joined the board of the Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation, taking the lead in the effort to raise funds to build the new Statue of Liberty Museum, which opened in May of 2019. She also serves on the board of
The Shed, a center for artistic and cultural innovation for the 21st Century situated in New York City, as well as the CFDA and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.
