This woman is one of my favorites.

Born in Brussels in December of 1946, von Fürstenberg would study economics at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. She moved to Paris and worked as an assistant to Albert Koski, the fashion photographer’s agent.  Next she left Paris for Italy, to work as an apprentice to textile manufacturer Angelo Ferretti. It was in Italy that she designed and produced her first silk jersey dresses. She rose to prominence when she married into the German princely House of Furstenberg as the wife of Prince Egon of Furstenberg. Following their divorce in 1972, she continued to use his family name, although she was no longer entitled to use the title of princess.

In 1970, with a $30,000 investment, von Fürstenberg began designing women’s clothes. She moved to New York, met with famed Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, who was kind enough to declare her designs “absolutely smashing,” and then had her name listed on the Fashion Calendar for New York Fashion Week.  Not a bad way to launch. It helps to have contacts. And thus her business was created.

Miss v F is best known for her knitted jersey “wrap dress” first introduced 1974. One of her vintage wrap dresses is in the collection of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, having earned the spot as a result of the dress’s influence on women’s fashion design. The dress is feminine and flattering to many body types.  The fact that these wrap dresses were made from knitted jersey made them easier to wear than any woven fabric ever.

I know, I had one.  I wore it almost to death.

After the phenomenal success of the wrap dress, von Fürstenberg was featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine in 1976. The cover picture was intended to be of Gerald Ford, the winner of the Republican presidential nomination, but at the last minute was changed to a picture of the gorgeous Miss v F in one of her own dresses. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather look at Miss v F any day rather than Gerald Ford.  Apparently the editors at Newsweek thought that would be the prevailing sentiment.  The accompanying article declared her “the most marketable woman since Coco Chanel.”

During the mid to late 1970s, I was a serious aficionado of Miss Von Furstenburg’s designs.  I was between college and grad school and wasn’t earning a lot of money.  But I had to have one of these dresses that made the designer so famous.

Fortunately for me, I had the two necessary ingredients for getting one of these wrap dresses:  I had a mother who was a skillful seamstress and Miss Von Furstenburg’s willingness to create patterns for the home sewer for the Vogue company.  I rushed to Frederick and Nelson department store in downtown Seattle, where I was working as a stockbroker, and purchased the patterns and some of the green and white printed cotton jersey and shipped them to my mother.  A few weeks later, I was dressed in a Diane Von Furstenburg wrap dress and I was verrrryyyyy  happpppyyyyyy!

Thanks mom!

I have always loved wearing dresses.  Always.  It just seems like the simplest way to dress to me.  One piece, shoes, you are done.  I love that!

Miss Von Furstenburg is one of the most chic women ever.  I want to be just like her when I grow up.

And while she has stayed true to her muse with full-skirted printed dresses, she has also stayed current with the times.

You go girl!

Everything she designs is designed to win.

Here is our first lady, the fashionable Michelle Obama, wearing Miss Von Furstenburg just last month.  Lovely!