There are fancy fashion docs galore, ones to fulfill anyone’s designer lifestyle fantasy. But there aren’t many that will make you weep. “So you cried? Why?” asks over Zoom while discussing the new Hulu doc , out June 25.
Long considered one of the world’s most glamorous women, the stunning septuagenarian is sprawled languorously on a hotel bed with zero makeup and undone hair, adorned by her signature “In Charge” necklace. Why tears? Well, for starters, not many documentaries end with their subject visiting their own grave site. “But that’s my favorite part of the film!” she says.
“Look, we can’t avoid mortality, so why not embrace it?” She notes that Jane Rosenthal — co-founder of the Tribeca Festival (where the film, directed by Trish Dalton and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, was the opening-night feature) — cried during that part, too. But, says the designer, “I still don’t get the tears.” “I’ve had a very full life,” says von Furstenberg, who’s already written two autobiographies and is so famous, she’s often simply referred to simply as DVF.
“But what I care about now is — is this film inspiring?” Of that there’s no doubt. The daughter of a Holocaust survivor, she became a European royal by marriage, then started an iconic fashion brand in 1970, after giving birth to two kids. She’s also a cancer survivor, a feminist activist (who honors female leaders at her annual DVF Awards) and a master at staying relevant, from being .
