Diane von Furstenberg was awarded a star on New York City's Seventh Avenue last week, the equivalent of a star on Hollywood's 'Walk of Fame' for New York City-based designers. It's a fact that fashion, women's fashion in particular, tends to be a man's world - designers, investors, advertising and retail executives and magazine publishers are predominantly men. Ironic (not to mention somewhat moronic) given the billions of their hard-earned dollars women spend on apparel and accessories each year but so be it. Every so often however, a woman comes along and leaves an unmistakable and indelible imprint on the fashion industry and nothing is ever the same again. Coco Chanel did just that leaving us with a number of iconic style references - the little black dress, the suit, costume jewelry, the 2.55 handbag, the two-toned shoes and so on. The formidable Diana Vreeland changed how we think about fashion encouraging Harper's Bazaar readers and later Vogue readers to use fashion as a form of self-expression. She would push her loyal staff to achieve new heights of whimsy and routinely instructed them to "(...) give them what they never knew they wanted!". More recently in the realm of fashion retailing, Nathalie Massenet's innovative online fashion retail site Net-A-Porter.com has changed how we think about shopping and more importantly, by expanding our options and our access to fashion, she has changed how we actually shop.
While plenty of designers come along and make an initial splash, few of them will have the mettle to slug it out for several decades and build a brand with longevity. This is precisely what Diane von Furstenberg has achieved and it's no fluke. While many still remember her as the woman who gave us the wrap dress in the 1970's, it would be simplistic to reduce her considerable influence on fashion to a mere dress, as fantastically practical and elegant as that dress may be. From the start, her fashion shows have been among the few that consistently feature models of every hue and ethnicity, her fashions can be worn elegantly by women of all shapes, sizes and ages and at its core, her corporate message is about the empowerment of women. So, it's about time the fashion industry recognized her considerable contributions to women's fashion. Congratulations DVF - the star on Seventh Avenue is well deserved!
Sincerely,
The Luxe Chronicles
Diane Von Furstenberg photo montage at Le Printemps department store in Paris (April 2008). Photo property of The Luxe Chronicles. All rights reserved.
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