If you read WWD, you surely know that Diane von Furstenberg loves an empowered woman, and an empowering one. But have you met her goddaughter, the Statue of Liberty?
What was billed as a typical pre-fall appointment — come in, kiss-kiss; 15 minutes to look at clothes on models, mannequins and racks; kiss-kiss, bye-bye — turned into a conversation about a mega non-fashion project DVF took on: securing funding for Lady Liberty’s new museum. The museum is being relocated from inside her pedestal to a new, 26,000-square-foot construction, also on Liberty Island.
While Diane’s efforts are hardly secret — the news was revealed two years ago and she has hit up a lot of rich people since then, raising a whopping $100 million — Diane wanted to downplay her involvement publicly, at least until closer to the opening, slated for a May 15 fete for which invitations will likely be as coveted as they were for the statue’s dedication ceremony in 1886. (The upcoming festivities will be happily more inclusive than the original. In a woefully historical irony, the dedication of Lady Liberty was closed to women, with outraged suffragettes protesting from boats that hovered as close as they could get to
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