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[Deepak Chopra] I'm Deepak Chopra, you're watching One World with Deepak Chopra, we're
coming to you from New York City at the NASDAQ building, Time Square. My very special guest
today is Diane von Furstenberg, and who hasn't heard the name. Major icon in the fashion
industry, had the privilege of knowing her for twenty years, or so.
[Diane von Furstenberg] No, just twenty years, exactly twenty years. In may, it will be twenty
years.
[DC] In may, it will be twenty. I wanna go back a little bit, and that we'll cover that
period, and then our present period. So you grew up in Europe, right?
[DvF] Yes, I was born in Belgium, and my mother is a survivor -- my mother when she was twenty,
she was a prisoner of war, she was in the concentration camp in Nazi Germany, in Auschwitz.
She stayed in the camps for thirteen months, and then it was the end of the war, and she
survived, and when she survived she weighed fifty nine pounds, so. She came back, and
then she married my father, and they told her that they should wait a few years before
having a baby because she couldn't do it, and the child would not be well, and of course
I was born immediately after.
[DC] Amazing. And then you came to the US, how old were you when came?
[DvF] Well, I went to, and then I went to boarding school, and I went to university,
I met my prince, I met Prince Egon Von Furstenberg, who became my boyfriend, then he became my
husband. He was living in America after university, so I came here. We had two children. I started
my company, and I live the American Dream.
[DC] And your company took off immediately.
[DvF] Yes, I was very lucky. As a young girl I actually did live an American Dream before
I was twenty-five. So that was fun. You lived an American Dream too.
[DC] But there was something special. You just don't end up here, and live the American
Dream. You had some unique contributions, right?
[DvF] Well, I didn't know...
[DC] Some signature things you did.
[DvF] I did not know that I had made a contribution. I mean, I -- you know, my goal at the time
was just to be independent because I had worked for in Italy for this man, who was a great
industrialist in the world, in the industry of fashion. I made a few samples in his factory,
and I came to America, and I sold it, and it was very simple, easy, nice little dress,
but they feel, they became something, and...
[DC] No but there was this famous wrap dress, right?
[DvF] Yes. It still is the wrap dress. We just celebrated -- this year we celebrated
its fortieth birthday.