In 1974, a then-26-year-old Diane von Furstenberg created a fashion phenomenon when she introduced her wrap dress to the world. V-necked, feminine, easy to wear and figure flattering for all, the dress that made the Belgian-born US designer a star has just turned 40 years. Within two years, she sold five million copies and von Furstenberg, 29 at the time, was hailed in 1976 by Newsweek magazine as “the most remarkable woman since Coco Chanel.”
The first advertisement for the dress featured the designer herself clad in one of the wrap styles, sitting on a white cube on which she wrote: ‘Feel like a Woman, Wear a Dress.’ “I was in my 20s when I made the dress, and it was my American dream, the wrap dress is really what helped me to become the woman I wanted to be, this little dress changed my life. It paid my bills, for my children’s education. But it also changed the lives of women in ways I had no idea about.” She told The New York Times recently. Unveiling her fall/winter 2014 collection on the New York catwalk with a shower of golden confetti, von Furstenberg gave the dress a starring role. Her latest collection, titled “Bohemian Wrapsody”, referenced “glamorous vagabonds”. Really, it was pure Diane von Furstenberg: easy, poppy 70’s stuff, a mash-up of Art Nouveau and Art Deco prints, billowing chiffons, psychedelic embroideries and a finale of glitzy, glittery gold wrap-dresses. Take a look.
