von Furstenberg, Diane, 1946–, Belgian-American fashion designer, b. Brussels as Diane Simone Michelle Halfin. She began designing before moving to New York in 1969, and created simple, functional clothes, including a two-piece close-fitting top and wrap-around skirt, which led to her iconic silk jersey wrap dress (1974). She expanded into cosmetics and fragrances, but by 1983 had sold her company's lines. In Paris from 1985, she established a small French-language publishing house there. In 1992 she reentered fashion, founding a company to design clothes for sale on an American home-shopping channel, and she subsequent reacquired and relaunched (1997) her original label, producing ready-to-wear, accessories, and jewelry. She became an American citizen in 2002.
See her memoirs (1998, 2014).
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