Diane von Furstenberg
speaker
67 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Diane von Furstenberg’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
That was two years ago, I think. Yeah, for my 74th birthday. Yeah, I have a tendency to think that, at least in my case, when I look at myself in the mirror, I find my strength there. So somehow, when I look at myself in the mirror, I like it. And then sometimes I see a picture of me and I say, oh, my God, that's not how I feel.
Listen, I don't judge anyone. Everyone has the right to do whatever they want. Right. I have a tendency, since I'm a little girl, to find a tiny bit destroyed look attractive. Because it's lived. So I like the lived. I never wanted to be a little girl. I always wanted to be a woman. I always aged myself. By the time I got to be 20, my mother said, how does it feel to be 20?
And I remember I told her, I've been saying I'm 20 for the last five years. So I've never wanted to be younger. I always look forward to be older.
I used to put Kleenex in my bra because I didn't have any breasts. So, you know, we never like what we are. Yeah, I know. Yeah.
Well, I never really thought of me as a leader. I prefer to think that I'm an inspirer. You know, I prefer to inspire rather than lead. But aren't you in charge, Diane? Yes, but you know, I mean, to be in charge is first and foremost a commitment to ourselves. It's owning who we are. We own our imperfection. They become assets. We own our vulnerability. We turn it into strength. Yes.
So to be in charge is really got to do with yourself. And everything has got to do with the relationship you have with yourself. Because the most important relationship in life is the one you have with yourself. Once you have that, any other relationship is a plus and not a must. And I never want to be needy ever. To anyone. For me, the most important thing is to be self-reliant.
My children, I mean, for me, loving your children is making them independent. That's how you love your children, because you equip them for life.
I mean, you know, I mean, I was very successful, extremely young, right? By 26, 27, I was on the cover of all the magazines. I mean, I was an entrepreneur. But you go up, you go up. What goes up must go down. You face difficulties. You go through all kinds of things. And what is important is not to pretend you're not.
But facing it, facing the obstacles, facing the difficulties and owning them and dealing with them. And then all of a sudden you turn them into assets. I don't get the sense you hold back how you're feeling. Do you let people know how you're feeling? You see, the thing that explains who I am is the fact that 18 months before I was born, my mother was liberated from Auschwitz.
She weighed 49 pounds. She was a skeleton in the midst of a field of ashes. She couldn't move. She could not move. She went back to Belgium. Her mother couldn't believe that she had survived. She was 21 years old. And she fed her like a little bird every 10 minutes. And within six months, she looked normal. Her fiancé, who had been in Switzerland, came. They met.
They get married and the doctor said, no matter what, you cannot have a child for at least two years because you will not make it and your child will not be normal. And sure enough, she got pregnant and I was born nine months later. And in a sense, you could say I was not normal. But the fact that I was so close to that, my existence, my mere birth was a triumph over misery.
And therefore, just the fact that I was born was a triumph. I had won just because I was born. And my mother used to say, God saved me so that I can give you life. By giving you life, you gave me my life back. You are my torch of freedom. So I was born with a torch of freedom in my hands, which as a little girl could be difficult. My mother, for example, would never allow me to be afraid.
If I was afraid of the dark, she would lock me in the dark closet. Today she could be arrested for it, but she made me fearless. And I'm thankful that she did that. She never wanted me to be a victim. Never be a victim, no matter what happens. And that's how you build your character. Because the only thing that you have complete control of, the only thing, is your character.
You could lose your health. You could lose your wealth. You could lose your job. You could lose your husband. You could lose your family. You could lose everything, but you never lose your character. And that character is the little house inside yourself that is called strength.
Yes. And my mother was also alive when my children were growing up. My mother died. They were already, both my children were parents. Oh, wow. She gave that survival strength to them as well. Yes. And we all have that incredible survival thing.
I mean, I don't know. I mean, 28 years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. Yeah. I mean, that's never pleasant. No. And but I dealt with it. You know, I say, OK, this is what happened. This is what the doctor can do. This is what I can do. And I just dealt with it. Right. And I mean, you know. My mother told me fear is not an option. So fear is always pushed away.
Because, I mean, if you push the fear away, everything stays the same. But at least you could deal with that without the fear, you know? Right. And I have a new trick. A friend of mine lately was, she was going through very, very difficult times. medical tests and it was very painful.
And she called me, she's in California, I'm in New York, and she calls me and it's 12 o'clock for me and I don't know what to tell her. And so I don't know what happened to me. I said, you know what, tomorrow when you do that, push your fear away, push your emotion and just go through it like you were watching a documentary. And the next day she called me and she said, you know, it was so helpful.
So now that's my new trick.
Yeah.
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