It’s not far from wrapping Diane von Furstenberg: The Skirball show wins “badass” at 77.

Diane von Fursternberg stands next to a timeline of her accomplishments on a bright pink wall at the Skirball Cultural Center in LA “The older you get, the more awards you get,” she says, erasing her inclusion of and one of the 100 most influential people of All Time. people in 2015 and received France’s highest rank, Chevalier de la Légion D’Honneur in Paris 2020.

It is the first time the fashion designer has visited an exhibit about her life and work, titled “Diane von Furstenberg: Woman Before Fashion,” which opens at the Skirball on Thursday. Organized by Nicolas Lor, head of exhibitions and publications at the Museum of Brussels Fashion & Lace (where it began), the show pays tribute to, among others, the creations of Von Furstenberg’s hands, the woven dress of jersey. Introduced to the public in 1974, the design became synonymous with women’s liberation and launched the career of young Von Furstenberg.

By 1976, she had sold a million dresses and appeared on the cover of Newsweek. Young, fierce and beautiful, Von Furstenberg became the face of her brand, and by the late 1970s, it was hard to turn around without seeing someone wearing the dress. of wearing. By the end of that decade, his company’s annual sales were over $150 million (or about $617 million in inflation-adjusted dollars).

Now 77, Von Furstenberg says he’s entered the winter of his life and is focused on what he calls “a legacy of activism,” but he doesn’t act like he’s desperate. Dressed in a stunning wash of bright colors with thick strands of pearls, large hoop earrings and white fishnet stockings, Von Furstenberg radiates effortless beauty. Sitting anywhere – on the sofa or at the foot of the wooden shelf for her dresses – she crosses her long legs perfectly. The effect is of a woman who is always ready for the camera to explode, which makes sense since Von Furstenberg has lived her life in the spotlight.

Attention came quickly, when at the age of 22 she married Egon von Fürstenberg, a Swiss prince of German descent whom she met at a boarding school. Within 18 months of their marriage, Von Furstenberg had two children. She says it was during this time that she decided to be an independent, “bad” woman, she says. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life, but after a friend’s father showed him around a textile printing factory near Como, Italy, he began to make “mini T-shirt dresses”. The way she explains it, these designs came easily to her, eventually leading to T-shirt dresses with pants underneath, then tops with wrap skirts and finally wears the dress itself.

“I call myself a designer,” says Von Furstenberg, who switches easily between French, Spanish and English depending on who he’s talking to in his group. “But it is true that he is a murderer.”

Indeed, Von Furstenberg’s life seems to be guided by an invisible chain of fate. Take, for example, the first time he met the famous Vogue editor Diana Vreeland in the late 1960s. Von Furstenberg’s husband (who, being a prince, “knew everybody”) helped organize the meeting, and Von Furstenberg arrived with a large suitcase full of designs, which he he put the hangers on the big rack. He remembers the office as “the most beautiful, with colors and jewels and scented candles,” and then “suddenly this dragon lady walks in, black, black, black, and she’s red with red nails and a big cigarette holder. .”

The first thing Vreeland did, Von Furstenberg says, was push his chin up.

“Thank you!” he ordered, before bringing in two thin models of Von Furstenberg’s age to try on clothes.

“Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful,” said Vreeland.

“Before I knew it, I was out the door with my suitcase,” said Von Furstenberg, and Vreeland’s assistant was telling him that he thought Vreeland liked the job and would do something about it. it. He told Von Furstenberg that it was almost Market Week, when the buyers came to town, and he should get a room at the Gotham Hotel, because that was where all the Californians stayed. She also told Von Furstenberg to subscribe to a fashion calendar and take out a small ad in Women’s Wear Daily. Von Furstenberg did as he was told.

She also called a photographer friend who took her now famous picture of her sitting on a white cube in a chain link dress. “Feel like a woman, wear a dress” was written on the hub. Von Furstenberg said he wrote the words on the photo print on a whim because he thought the box looked empty.

These words are as famous as he is, although he now says, “Today I’m not sure it’s politically correct to say that.”

“Why?” asked Lor, sitting nearby. She loves this first story about Von Furstenberg and is impressed by the way she combines the artist with her own and vice versa – and how she managed to create a dress in the 1970s that still works today.

“Because, ‘feel like a woman, wear a dress,’ I’m sure there are many reasons for it not to be true,” he says with a smile.

But she likes to wear dresses – even today. And the wrap dress continues to appeal to new generations of women.

“It’s always the young people who rediscover it,” says Von Furstenberg.

Von Furstenberg grew up in awe of women like Gloria Steinem and Angela Davis and has long been an advocate for women’s causes. Her DVF Awards, now 15 years old, were founded with her husband, media mogul Barry Diller, to support women who are committed to women’s causes around the world, often in the face of great adversity.

This strength and dedication comes from his mother, a Holocaust survivor who was arrested as part of the Resistance in World War II. He was imprisoned in Auschwitz and later in Ravensbrück, Germany. She gave birth to Von Furstenberg 18 months after her release, and Von Furstenberg says she taught her not to be afraid, and not to be a victim.

He says that when you have a strong mother, you may try to push her away, “but then you end up being completely like her.”

Von Furstenberg’s advice to young women to begin with is as simple as she makes everything in her complicated life sound:

“Your imperfection is you. It becomes your property. You have your weaknesses, you turn them into strengths. ”