When Diane von Furstenberg was a huntress
“I had fun with men,” von Furstenberg says, grinning. At one point she lived in a bamboo hut in Bali with a Brazilian art dealer.
Diane von Furstenberg enjoys men on her terms, says Leslie Bennetts in Town & Country. The legendary fashion designer firmly believes that women should have their own identities. “No man will solve your problems,” she says. “I’ve never looked for ‘the right man’—there’s no such thing. The relationship that solves your problems is the relationship you have with yourself.”
That hasn’t stopped her from having many lovers, Richard Gere and Ryan O’Neal among them. At one point, she indulged in what she calls “the fantasy of the jungle man”—living in a bamboo hut in Bali with a Brazilian art dealer and wearing sarongs. “I had fun with men,” she says, grinning. “I was a very, very big huntress. I wanted to show, ‘Why can’t we do this? Why can only men do this?’”
Today, von Furstenberg continues her semi-autonomous lifestyle with her second husband, media mogul Barry Diller. “We don’t live together during the week. I live on top of my shop; he lives at the Carlyle Hotel. If I can’t be alone a little bit, then I lose myself—and I cannot lose myself.” Still, at 63, she’s glad she’s no longer on the prowl. “I’m glad I did it then because it would be pathetic if I did it now. Seduction is not something in my vocabulary anymore.”
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