Diane von Furstenberg chats with New York Times reporter Vanessa Friedman about how her fashionably eclectic office in the Meatpacking District doubles as a living space and a reflection of the DVF brand.
People who walk into this office get a real sense of who I am, and since who I am is who the brand is, it is very helpful, you know, for them to walk in here and to see all what the brand stands for.
This is not the room where I work with design. This is where I do everything that I don’t do when I do design. We have meetings here, I have lunch here, I have often dinner here, I do yoga here.
When I first started I didn’t think I was a designer. I just came to New York, I wanted to be independent, I had the idea of combining all these things I had learnt and make easy little dresses, and then, before I knew, I dressed every woman in America and it so much interlinked my life and, and my work, that’s just the essence of what my brand became, you know. I didn’t know I would become a brand.
My favourite place is to sit behind my desk. I love desks, I mean, I have a passion for big tables. The desk is a Ruhlmann table, it’s a masterpiece of the 20th century, but it’s enormous, so it doesn’t fit most places.
I have many photographs, the people in my life, you know, the children, and then the children have children and so it’s kind of a kaleidoscope of people I love.
Everything that is in this room is too close to me to actually inspire me because once you are in this room you no longer inspire me but you are part of me.
I think my offices I’ve always lived like a living-room because I live and work together and that’s the way I am.
I love the energy of this building. This is actually three little brick buildings, so I completely gutted it inside. This floor here is my floor or, you know, top management, I mean meetings and library. Fourth floor is all of marketing. Third floor is sales. Second floor is all show room, and then the first floor is retail. When I’m here I have my little and it’s nothing but a bedroom really.
I love that I’m close to the sea, maybe is the cobblestone and the brick that reminded me of Belgium. I love that I have a park between my office and Barry’s office, I mean, the Highline was so much in my heart and my family, we help making it happen and it did happen, so it’s totally my neighbourhood.
I am very comfortable here. It’s very much the house of D.V.F.
