From Publishers Weekly
In 1973, Diane Von Furstenburg introduced her now famous wrap dress, an outfit she estimates has "found its way into almost every closet in America," becoming a cultural icon, symbolic of women's growing sexual and financial freedom. Five years later, in 1978, the market appeared to be saturated with the dress and the era of the wrap came to a close. Today, Von Furstenburg has updated and reissued the dress for a new generation; launched fragrance, cosmetics and couture companies; and ventured into the home-shopping business. She asks that this memoir "inspire those who read it," and certainly the determination and verve with which she has overcome each setback in her life?be it a business reversal, a love affair turned sour or a cancer diagnosis?might prove inspirational to some. But despite the fascinating raw materials of her life (the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, she married a German prince, becoming a jet-setting socialite/entrepreneur/mother/paramour), this autobiography offers far more glitz than grist for thought. She drops names and brand names so interchangeably that we know not only who the celebrities are who buy her clothes but when the author received her first Pucci shirt. When Von Furstenburg reflects on her philosophy of life?"to me, life is love is life is love. I put those words on a T-shirt once"?readers may suspect that the real purpose here is to sell apparel. And sell it will. Photos not seen by PW. First serial to Vogue. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Von Furstenberg looks back at 50.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Michele Orecklin
This is breezy reading for anyone who enjoys columns with a plentitude of bold-faced names.


From Kirkus Reviews
Build a better dress and they will come: this is the theme of this celebrity autobiography by designer/jet setter Von Furstenberg. The daughter of a concentration camp survivor, 22-year-old Von Furstenberg was living in 1960s New York with her husband, German Prince Eduard Egon Von Furstenberg, when she introduced the dress that would make her a fashion icon and a millionaire in her own right. The wrap dress, she says, was `' . . . nothing really. just a few yards of fabric with two sleeves and a wide wrap sash.'' But it caught the imaginations of millions of women and even entered the Smithsonian Institution's pop culture collection. Von Furstenberg also worked hard, crisscrossed the country promoting her line of clothing, sometimes chasing a potential customer across the selling floor to insist the matron was not ``too old and too fat'' to wear the dress. Although separated from her husband after less than four years of marriage, Von Furstenberg was devoted to her two children, characterizing herself as as ``a single, working mother.'' Unlike most single mothers, she dined and danced at the White House, becoming friends with Henry Kissinger, California's former governor Jerry Brown, and movie mogul Barry Diller. When women's power suits and some unfortunate business decisions led to the decline of The Dress and of the value of her name, she sold it all (very profitably) and moved to Paris with an Italian novelist. There she ran a literary salon, welcoming writers from Alberto Moravia to Bret Easton Ellis. But business was where her talent lay; she returned to New York in 1989 and found her way onto QVC, a TV shopping channel, where in four years she sold $40 million worth of her designs. She also survived a bout with cancer. Decorated by a glamorous roster of friends and acquaintances (from Andy Warhol to Queen Elizabeth II), this biography is direct and unpretentious, but essentially insubstantialmuch like the wrap dress. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen) (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
Calvin Klein Diane Von Furstenberg is the quintessential modern woman. You must read this book.


Book Description
Diane is the frank and compelling story of an extraordinary woman and her adventures in fashion, business, and life. "Most fairy tales end with the girl marrying the prince. That's where mine began," says Diane Von Furstenberg. She didn't have to work, but she did. She lived the American Dream before she was thirty, building a multimillion-dollar fashion empire while raising two children and living life in the fast lane. Von Furstenberg's wrap dress, a cultural phenomenon in the seventies, hangs in the Smithsonian Institution. "No one was making a little bourgeois dress, so I did," she told Newsweek in her 1976 cover story. The dress achieved such popularity that in the five years it was on the market, Diane sold more than five million of them. Her entry into the beauty business in 1979 was as serendipitous and as successful. Diane learned her trade in the trenches, crisscrossing the country to make personal appearances at department stores, selling her dresses and cosmetics. "As I was learning to be a woman and enjoying being one, I was sharing my discoveries, designing for my needs, and making a business of it," she writes. That business had its ups and downs. Eventually, there was so much demand for and exposure of the dress that the market became saturated; on the verge of bankruptcy, she licensed that part of the business, focusing on her fragrance and beauty products. Von Furstenberg's personal world unraveled a bit in 1980 when her mother, Lily, a survivor of Auschwitz, had a breakdown. Diane of course knew about her mother's experience in the camps, though her mother had never wanted to dwell on it. She understood that her own need for freedom came from her mother's lack of it, and that her resilience derived from her mother's life lesson to always turn a negative into a positive. Leaving the glitz of Manhattan and the music of Studio 54 behind, Diane escaped to Bali with her children, returning inspired and renewed. With all of this energy, the cosmetics business flourished. But it grew so fast that in 1983 she found herself undercapitalized and was forced to sell. In 1985, having given up control of her brand to licensees and with her children away at school, Diane turned her back on America and packed for Paris. She spent four years in her new role as part of the literary scene there, trading in her spike heels for flat shoes and tweed. In 1990, she found she missed the chase and returned to New York to regain control of her name and relaunch her company. Frustrated by the degraded status of her brand and dismissed by the retail community, she searched for a new way to reconnect with her customers. She found it through the revolutionary new medium of teleshopping and once again became a success. However, she still wanted to return to retail. In 1997, as the wrap dress was making a comeback with the nostalgia for the seventies, Von Furstenberg, with the help of her beautiful daughter-in-law, Alexandra, redesigned the dress for the nineties and made her name relevant to a whole new generation. Now, at fifty, Diane works to make sense of the contradictions in her life: glamour vs. hard work, European vs. American, daughter of a Holocaust survivor vs. wife of an Austro-Italian prince, mother vs. entrepreneur, lover vs. tycoon. She emerges wiser, stronger, and ever more determined never to sacrifice her passion for life.


About the Author
Diane Von Furstenberg is a designer and entrepreneur who created one of the world's most recognized fashion labels. She has two grown children and divides her time between her design studio in New York and homes in Connecticut, Paris, and the Bahamas.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Now available in a slightly updated version, Diane Von Furstenberg's wrap dress, a cultural phenomenon in the 1970s that hangs in the Smithsonian Institution, has sold more than five million. In Diane: A Signature Life, Von Furstenberg looks back at a groundbreaking career that shows no sign of slowing down.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Diane is the story of an extraordinary woman and her adventures in fashion, business, and life. "Most fairy tales end with the girl marrying the prince. That's where mine began," says Diane Von Furstenberg. She didn't have to work, but she did. She lived the American Dream before she was thirty, building a multimillion-dollar fashion empire while raising two children and living life in the fast lane. Von Furstenberg's wrap dress, a cultural phenomenon in the seventies, hangs in the Smithsonian Institution. "No one was making a little bourgeois dress, so I did," she told Newsweek in her 1976 cover story. The dress achieved such popularity that in the five years it was on the market, Diane sold more than five million of them. Her entry into the beauty business in 1979 was as serendipitous and as successful. Von Furstenberg's personal world unraveled a bit in 1980 when her mother, Lily, a survivor of Auschwitz, had a breakdown. Diane of course knew about her mother's experience in the camps, though her mother had never wanted to dwell on it. Leaving the glitz of Manhattan and the music of Studio 54 behind, Diane escaped to Bali with her children, returning inspired and renewed. With all of this energy, the cosmetics business flourished. But it grew so fast that in 1983 she found herself undercapitalized and was forced to sell. In 1985, having given up control of her brand to licensees and with her children away at school, Diane turned her back on America and packed for Paris. She spent four years in her new role as part of the literary scene there. In 1990, she found she missed the chase and returned to New York to regain control of her name and relaunch her company. Frustrated by the degraded status of her brand and dismissed by the retail community, she searched for a new way to reconnect with her customers. She found it through the revolutionary new medium of teleshopping and once again became a success.

SYNOPSIS

Now available again in a slightly updated version for the '90s, Diane Von Furstenberg's wrap dress, a cultural phenomenon that hangs in the Smithsonian Institution, has sold more than five million since it was introduced in the 1970s. In Diane: A Signature Life, she looks back at a groundbreaking career that shows no sign of slowing down.

FROM THE CRITICS

People Magazine

You have to hand it to Diane Von Furstenberg: She works hard for the money. . . .Still, her candor is endearing.

Michele Orecklin - New York Times Book Review

. . .[B]reezy reading for anyone who enjoys columns with a plentitutde of bold-faced names.

Publishers Weekly

In 1973, Diane Von Furstenburg introduced her now famous wrap dress, an outfit she estimates has "found its way into almost every closet in America," becoming a cultural icon, symbolic of women's growing sexual and financial freedom. Five years later, in 1978, the market appeared to be saturated with the dress and the era of the wrap came to a close. Today, Von Furstenburg has updated and reissued the dress for a new generation; launched fragrance, cosmetics and couture companies; and ventured into the home-shopping business. She asks that this memoir "inspire those who read it," and certainly the determination and verve with which she has overcome each setback in her life--be it a business reversal, a love affair turned sour or a cancer diagnosis--might prove inspirational to some. But despite the fascinating raw materials of her life (the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, she married a German prince, becoming a jet-setting socialite/entrepreneur/mother/paramour), this autobiography offers far more glitz than grist for thought. She drops names and brand names so interchangeably that we know not only who the celebrities are who buy her clothes but when the author received her first Pucci shirt. When Von Furstenburg reflects on her philosophy of life--"to me, life is love is life is love. I put those words on a T-shirt once"--readers may suspect that the real purpose here is to sell apparel. And sell it will. Photos not seen by PW. First serial to Vogue. (Nov.)

Kirkus Reviews

Build a better dress and they will come: this is the theme of this celebrity autobiography by designer/jet setter Von Furstenberg. The daughter of a concentration camp survivor, 22-year-old Von Furstenberg was living in 1960s New York with her husband, German Prince Eduard Egon Von Furstenberg, when she introduced the dress that would make her a fashion icon and a millionaire in her own right. The wrap dress, she says, was 'nothing really. just a few yards of fabric with two sleeves and a wide wrap sash.' But it caught the imaginations of millions of women and even entered the Smithsonian Institution's pop culture collection. Von Furstenberg also worked hard, crisscrossed the country promoting her line of clothing, sometimes chasing a potential customer across the selling floor to insist the matron was not 'too old and too fat' to wear the dress. Although separated from her husband after less than four years of marriage, Von Furstenberg was devoted to her two children, characterizing herself as as 'a single, working mother.' Unlike most single mothers, she dined and danced at the White House, becoming friends with Henry Kissinger, California's former governor Jerry Brown, and movie mogul Barry Diller. When women's power suits and some unfortunate business decisions led to the decline of The Dress and of the value of her name, she sold it all (very profitably) and moved to Paris with an Italian novelist. There she ran a literary salon, welcoming writers from Alberto Moravia to Bret Easton Ellis. But business was where her talent lay; she returned to New York in 1989 and found her way onto QVC, a TV shopping channel, where in four years she sold $40 million worth of her designs. Shealso survived a bout with cancer.