EXCLUSIVE: She loved her wrap dress, baring her breasts, group sex and partying - but almost lost everything to cancer. How defying death took Diane von Furstenberg back to the top of the fashion world

  • New biography reveals how fashion designer's Jewish-Belgian mother, a Holocaust survivor, told her daughter not to be 'ashamed of sex'
  • She had love affairs at her Swiss boarding school with a Persian boy and her lesbian friend then dived into London's swinging sixties scene
  • When she married for the first time to a bisexual German prince there was group sex on honeymoon: 'They were all fiddling with each other's things'
  • She loved her aristocratic title and became a fashion success with her wrap dress but that was not enough to conquer her insecurities
  • Diagnosed with cancer she was told half her face should be removed but opted for radiation and her battle inspired her to return to fashion industry

By Caroline Howe For Dailymail.com

Published: 08:55 EST, 6 July 2015 | Updated: 16:29 EST, 6 July 2015

Fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, famous for her wrap dress in the Seventies and her hard partying at Studio 54, was the ultimate social climber, an alpha female who used powerful men and viewed herself outside of society's mores.

She re-invented herself multiple times after her design business was on the brink of bankruptcy with the help of rich businessmen and psychics.

Behind the veneer and drive of the girl who grew up in a Jewish family in Brussels, her mother a Holocaust survivor, was an insecurity that plagued von Furstenberg all of her life.

'I really thought I was a dog when I was a young girl,' she says.

Now 68, she remembers always wanting to be a femme fatale even in kindergarten when she stood out from the sea of blondes – gap toothed with dark, frizzy, curly hair.

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Hot property: Fashion success and sexual excess went hand in hand for Diane von Furstenberg, who invented the wrap dress

Hot property: Fashion success and sexual excess went hand in hand for Diane von Furstenberg, who invented the wrap dress

Schooldays: At her Swiss boarding school, von Furstenberg - then Halfin - discovered sex with both men and women, having a Persian boy as a lover and embarking on a lesbian affair with a friend

Schooldays: At her Swiss boarding school, von Furstenberg - then Halfin - discovered sex with both men and women, having a Persian boy as a lover and embarking on a lesbian affair with a friend

Not blonde ambition: She remembers always wanting to be a femme fatale even in kindergarten when she stood out from the sea of blondes – gap toothed with dark, frizzy, curly hair.

Not blonde ambition: She remembers always wanting to be a femme fatale even in kindergarten when she stood out from the sea of blondes – gap toothed with dark, frizzy, curly hair.

Boarding school in Switzerland and London would be her sexual awakening with affairs with a Persian boy named Sohrab and a lesbian friend, Deanna.

'She was very shy and masculine, and she intrigued me. I was in love with her', Diane confesses.

Mod fashion on London's King's Road and the swinging Sixties of wild sex and rock music, opened the door to von Furstenberg's forthcoming lifestyle of 'sex, glamour and celebrity' – along with the caveat from her mother, Lily, 'not to be afraid or ashamed of sex'.

So sex became a central focus of her life. 'Diane would sleep with many men and fall in love with a few' – and women as well.

Author Gioia Diliberto explores the pulse and impulses of the designer in Diane von Furstenberg, A Life Unwrapped, in Dey Street Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, on 7 July.

Not an ambitious student, after boarding school, Diane moved in with her mother and her mother's lover in Geneva where she connected with Brooklyn born hustler, Bernie Cornfield who was selling mutual funds to Americans living abroad.

She was hired as a part-time receptionist in the mid-sixties and was exposed to someone 'astoundingly rich' – with 'his over-the top lifestyle of sports cars, horses, yachts, houses, parties and women' – as well as a French castle, a mansion in London, a villa in Geneva that had been built by Napoleon.

Family: Von Furstenberg grew up in Belgium, was educated in Switzerland and was partying in Lausanne when she met her first husband - the bisexual 'amoral' German prince Egon von Furstenberg

Family: Von Furstenberg grew up in Belgium, was educated in Switzerland and was partying in Lausanne when she met her first husband - the bisexual 'amoral' German prince Egon von Furstenberg

Swinging scene: She embraced the London fo the 1960s then moved to Paris, where she slept with men and woman. Omar Sharif was one - but he was a 'lousy lay'

Swinging scene: She embraced the London fo the 1960s then moved to Paris, where she slept with men and woman. Omar Sharif was one - but he was a 'lousy lay'

The doors opened to a new international group of privileged hard-partiers, nightclubs and dancing all night.

Diane was creating a bohemian persona wearing a cowboy hat, fingerless gloves with little silver bells attached, peasant blouses and the bell-bottoms.

She was 'chubbier than she is now, and she wore this awful white lipstick', Nona Gordon remembered, but that didn't affect her being 'naughty', and disappearing into the bathroom with Nona's boyfriend.

When she met Egon von Furstenberg at a party in Lausanne, it led to hitting the jackpot for the nineteen-year-old. He was 'a bona fide prince' and she verified it by sneaking a look at his passport.

'He had a heart of gold and was very generous. But he was the most amoral thing I've ever come across. He'd f*** anything – boy, girl, whatever,' Gordon said.

It was a slow segue into romance for the pair. She wasn't his typical aristocratic blonde girlfriend.

Diane 'wore theatrical makeup. It wasn't normal makeup. Purple eye shadow. Dark nail polish.

She moved to Paris in the late sixties when social change was ushering in what became a slogan of the era, 'Live without limits and enjoy without restraint.'

'Diane was wild. She slept with all sorts of people. A lot of them she's forgotten,' Gordon says.

They included Omar Sharif, the star of Doctor Zhivago, the worst lay she ever had, she announced.

The plump, Jewish Belgian girl lacked the right pedigree to get into the 'best' parties hosted by aristocrats.

Marriage a la mode: The couple married in 1969 and honeymooned on Sardinia's Costa Smeralda, where 'there was a lot of swimming, sunning, drinking, pot smoking, and dabbling in group sex, instigated by Egon'

Marriage a la mode: The couple married in 1969 and honeymooned on Sardinia's Costa Smeralda, where 'there was a lot of swimming, sunning, drinking, pot smoking, and dabbling in group sex, instigated by Egon'

Fresh prince: 'He had a heart of gold and was very generous. But he was the most amoral thing I've ever come across. He'd f*** anything – boy, girl, whatever,' Nona Gordon recalls of Egon

Fresh prince: 'He had a heart of gold and was very generous. But he was the most amoral thing I've ever come across. He'd f*** anything – boy, girl, whatever,' Nona Gordon recalls of Egon

Not your usual aristocrat:  'She wasn't exactly princess material'. She was Jewish, from a bourgeois Brussels background and had a 'raging ambition, seen as unseemly to those who'd been to the manor born'.

Not your usual aristocrat:  'She wasn't exactly princess material'. She was Jewish, from a bourgeois Brussels background and had a 'raging ambition, seen as unseemly to those who'd been to the manor born'.

'She was not rich; she was not beautiful in that delicate porcelain way of a Faubourg aristocrat'. She was a middle-class girl who knew how to warm up to people with entrée to that über-glamorous life she coveted, a life of drugs and partying.

While attending a Liza Minelli concert in Paris, Diane jumped out in front of Minelli, got down on her knees and told Liza how much she loved her.

Angelo Ferretti, owner of textile factories in Italy, introduced Diane to the fashion world with an apprenticeship where she learned textiles. His son was also a friend of Egon's brother.

Egon set the pattern for the men who attracted Diane.

She knew he was bisexual and didn't care. Gay men in her circle were handsome, romantic, caring and very well dressed as well as being enthusiastic lovers who also danced well.

'They weren't testosterone-driven, misogynistic, or womanizing, like so many straight men', Gigi Williams, a makeup artist who worked for Diane said. 'They were very empathetic'.

The couple married in 1969 and honeymooned on Sardinia's Costa Smeralda, a jet-setting hotspot where 'there was a lot of swimming, sunning, drinking, pot smoking, and dabbling in group sex, instigated by Egon'.

'They were all fiddling with each other's things' and orgies were the norm.

Motherhood: Back in New York, she immersed herself in the fashion arts while her two babies were taken care of by a nanny. Learning fashion design became her lifeline to the society she coveted.

Motherhood: Back in New York, she immersed herself in the fashion arts while her two babies were taken care of by a nanny. Learning fashion design became her lifeline to the society she coveted.

It's a wrap: In 1974, the wrap dress launched her design career hitting like 'a tsunami in matte jersey'. It cost $16.57 to make; she sold it to stores for $39.75; they marked it up to $75 -- $350 in 2014 dollars.

It's a wrap: In 1974, the wrap dress launched her design career hitting like 'a tsunami in matte jersey'. It cost $16.57 to make; she sold it to stores for $39.75; they marked it up to $75 -- $350 in 2014 dollars.

Back in New York, she immersed herself in the fashion arts while her two babies were taken care of by a nanny. Learning fashion design became her lifeline to the society she coveted.

'I was racked with insecurity. I had no identity of my own. No one really knew who I was, not even men. The person who went to parties was Princess von Furstenberg, a character who'd stepped out of a fairy tale. It was just as much a fairy tale to me'. And she used her title….'this is Princess von Furstenberg', she'd say, introducing herself.

She continued singling out important men and cozying up to them, Jann Wenner, publisher and founder of Rolling Stone noticed.

Her social group partied on - smoking pot, snorting coke while oblivious to the Vietnam War raging in the Southeast Asia or the presidency of Richard Nixon.

'It was a group that cared more about style and beauty and fun and pleasure than it did about politics'.

Egon frolicked in New York's gay bathhouses and the backroom bars of the West Village, and Diane had her own affairs in the open marriage that 'fed her sense of self as a naughty siren'.

'She wasn't exactly princess material', Picasso historian John Richardson is quoted. She was Jewish, from a bourgeois Brussels background and had a 'raging ambition, seen as unseemly to those who'd been to the manor born'.

She was a climber, 'passionately interested in her own glory' who loved to expose her breasts in public.

Second love: Barry Diller (right) was gay but when he met the designer, the passion was overwhelming. Their relationship is still baffling to many, she says. 'At times we were separated, at times we were only friends, at times we were lovers, at times we were husband and wife, that's our life.'

Second love: Barry Diller (right) was gay but when he met the designer, the passion was overwhelming. Their relationship is still baffling to many, she says. 'At times we were separated, at times we were only friends, at times we were lovers, at times we were husband and wife, that's our life.'

Bride and groom: Barry Diller married Diane von Furstenberg in February 2001, at City Hall in New York. Her gave her 26 diamond bracelets one for each year that they were not together - she give him 'herself'

Bride and groom: Barry Diller married Diane von Furstenberg in February 2001, at City Hall in New York. Her gave her 26 diamond bracelets one for each year that they were not together - she give him 'herself'

She was ridiculed and fawned over – but the aristocratic title had cachet.

Her most 'brilliant invention was herself,' said Richardson. 'That's what she's all about'.

'I did make it all up, but I'm not an imposter!' she was to say.

Diane was guided by astrology and parapsychology following her mother's habit of consulting psychics and fortune-tellers.

 Have I slept with women? Yes. But I'm definitely not a lesbian

She'd sign contracts on certain days and believed she had been a slave girl in Brazil in a previous life as well as a powerful army general.

In 1974, the wrap dress launched her design career hitting like 'a tsunami in matte jersey'.

It cost $16.57 to make; she sold it to stores for $39.75; they marked it up to $75 -- $350 in 2014 dollars. By the mid seventies, they were selling at 25,000 a week.

That didn't alleviate her insecurities. She was called a fake and a fad by Seventh Avenue observers who viewed the dress as a copy from Europe. 'Her name wasn't her own. Her princess title was laughable to real aristocrats'.

Her marriage to Egon dissolved and Diane started globe-trotting, sleeping with Warren Beatty, Ryan O'Neal the same weekend in Beverly Hills as well as Richard Gere. She climbed into bed with California governor Jerry Brown, Governor Moonbeam.

Lily, Diane's mother, now spent eight months of the year raising her grandchildren while Diane was traveling and working.

At a party in New York in 1974, Diane met thirty-two year old wunderkind and new chairman of Paramount Pictures, Barry Diller, who declared himself in love with her by the end of the evening.

His friends knew he was gay and that his 'affair with Diane was the first he'd had with a woman.' He believed he had finally found his soul mate.

 Barry totally gave in to me, trusted me blindly, and loved me unconditionally

After joining Barry in Los Angeles, Diane later stated that she had fallen 'very much in love with Barry, and I was overwhelmed by the way he loved me. Barry totally gave in to me, trusted me blindly, and loved me unconditionally'.

Confused by people's curiosity about their relationship, Diane stated, 'This man has been my lover, my friend, and now he's my husband. I've been with him for thirty-five years. At times we were separated, at times we were only friends, at times we were lovers, at times we were husband and wife, that's our life'.

But before settling down to a happily married life, she partied at New York's infamous Studio 54 where male couples copulated openly in back rooms and a tray of Quaaludes was passed around by a bare-chested bartender.

In the club, she picked up a teenage runaway from Buffalo, a college boy living with his parents in New Jersey, a surfer. She frequented gay dives on Fourteenth Street dressed in male disguise.

'Have I slept with women? Yes. But I'm definitely not a lesbian'.

Her next move was to license her name to cheap products and cosmetics – hoping to pick up where sales of the dresses had come to a screeching halt.. All the dresses that didn't sell were unloaded in South Korea.

I'm still standing: Overcoming cancer brought her love of business success back and led to her triumphant sheath dress. But it was a success which also depended on the support of Barry Diller 

I'm still standing: Overcoming cancer brought her love of business success back and led to her triumphant sheath dress. But it was a success which also depended on the support of Barry Diller 

All this and more...: With her son Alex, who discloses that his mother wants to be 'bigger than Chanel'

All this and more...: With her son Alex, who discloses that his mother wants to be 'bigger than Chanel'

Now she wanted to become the next cosmetics queen.

She was out of sync and owed a staggering ten million dollars. She wasn't seeing Diller at the time so he couldn't advise her and throw her a financial lifeline.

Living with a writer in Paris, she discovered she was pregnant and opted for an abortion when he wasn't at home. It was her third abortion having had two with Egon. Disappointed, her lover took up with another woman and Diane returned to New York.

By 1990, after a period of manic traveling that didn't cure her unhappiness at having no business, she was inspired by conversation with Diller, Calvin Klein and David Geffen, and started designing dresses to be sold on QVC.

Ralph Lauren confessed to Diane in 1994 that he had had a brain tumor that turned out to be benign but the process was tortuous.

Shortly afterward, Diane discovered a swollen gland in her neck that turned out to be cancerous. 'A malignancy had been found at the base of her tongue and in the soft palate of her mouth'.

Surgeons want to remove part of her jawbone and cheek, cut off half her face. She refused and opted for radiation.

She consulted health guru Deepak Chopra, who taught her to meditate and heal herself of the radiation burns on her face and back, a sore throat, and mouth blisters.

Her battle with cancer awakened her to getting back into business, recharged her brand – with the help of Diller. Her new launch in fashion was a sheath dress.

Diller meanwhile was in search of a media empire of his own and resigned from QVC and took over Home Shopping Network as well as a controlling stake in Silver King, a TV network that broadcast.

By March 2014, Forbes put his wealth at $2.4 billion.

'He would spend many millions of it to help Diane recharge her brand' – DVF Studio.

When the couple married in 2001 and his wedding present was 'a collection of twenty-six diamond studded bands for the 26 years they hadn't been married'. Her present was 'myself', she said.

In 2002, pursuing the incentive of tax benefits of citizenship after marrying Diller, she became a U.S. Citizen.

Now she has 'fame, fortune, houses, jewelry, cars, an airplane, a yacht, children, grandchildren, an adoring husband, a thriving business',

But it is not enough: her son Alex says 'she wants to be as big as Chanel'.

Diane von Furstenberg: A Life Unwrapped by Gioia Diliberto is on sale at Amazon 

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