Diane Von Furstenberg Brings On Fashion Veteran To Reinvent Her DVF Brand, Again

Diane von Furstenberg has reclaimed control of her eponymous DVF fashion brand from Chinese licensee and distributor Glamel, after four years of letting the brand languish under its global management, though it will still continue as a partner in the Greater China market.

And she’s brought on fashion industry veteran Graziano di Boni to restore the brand to its rightful place in the fashion industry hierarchy.

As extraordinarily successful as she’s been in her life, or in marketing-speak building a personal brand, Diane von Furstenberg hasn’t matched it in managing her DVF business.

Now von Furstenberg hopes she’s found the right formula to turn the company around.

“I am very excited to support Graziano’s leadership redesigning the company as he surrounds himself with talent that understands the zeitgeist of today and respects and appreciates the richness of the assets of the past,” she said in a statement.

Fashion Royalty

More than a legend, Diane von Furstenberg is fashion royalty, not to mention that she was actually a princess during her first marriage to an European prince.

Now married to self-made billionaire Barry Diller of IAC fame – he’s on Forbes “400 Richest People in America” and “World’s Billionaires” list – she’s still a card-carrying member of the aristocracy in our egalitarian society.

She started her fashion career in 1972 and shot to fame in 1974 when she introduced the knitted jersey “wrap dress,” as formidable a fashion classic as Coco Chanel’s “little black dress.” Forbes reports that by 1976, she’d sold over one million wrap dress

Von Furstenberg has won so many fashion awards that in 2010, she had to set up one of her own – the DVF Award, which provides grants to women who display extraordinary leadership, courage and commitment to their cause. Amal Clooney was one of the 2023 recipients.

Her designs have dressed everybody who is anybody – Michelle Obama wore a wrap dress on an official White House Christmas Card. She’s written four books, most recently 2021’s Own It: The Secret to Life and earlier this year she starred in a Hulu documentary, Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge, featuring interviews with Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton, Gloria Steinem and Marc Jacobs, among others.

Fall From Grace

DVF nearly went belly-up in 2020, a casualty of the pandemic closures, though the company’s struggles began in 2015, according to the New York Times.

DVF was forced to close 18 of the company’s 19 U.S. stores and laid off over 60% of staff in the U.S., Britain and France, including company CEO Sandra Campos, who’d been with the brand since 2018.

At the time, business management and operations were turned over to Glamel, though the von Furstenberg and Diller family retained ownership of the brand and maintained a studio and flagship boutique in NYC’s Meatpacking District.

Now four years later, von Furstenberg is ready to start again with di Boni at the helm.

New Hand At The Helm

“When I joined DVF ten months ago, I was asked to develop a plan for the legacy of the brand,” de Boni said in a statement. “Immersing myself into the history of DVF, I found not only the iconic wrap dress that continues to sell after 50 years, but also a vast archive of prints and fabrics that revealed a unique and strong design vocabulary. All of this is very relevant for today’s digital-first landscape of retail and social media.”

The company is not yet granting interviews, but looking from the outside in, de Boni seems to be the yang to von Furstenberg’s yin.

He started his career in 1987 as an Arthur Anderson auditor in Italy, moved onto financial positions in fashion with Marzotto and Hugo Boss, where he rose to executive vice president, only to return to Marzotto as CEO for nearly ten years.

Similar senior positions followed, including president of Valentino worldwide and CEO of Valentino America, CEO of Prada America and CEO of Giorgio Armani America. He eventually founded Di Boni Consulting in 2017 and operated it successfully until DVF lured him away in October 2023.

He’s got his work cut out since the brand has been effectively in hiding for four years with the core business under Glamel’s control.

Undoing Years Of Neglect

“The news of the appointment of Graziano de Boni, a veteran of the fashion business in the USA, is encouraging, but certainly not enough to make the brand reclaim a bright space in the industry, after abrupt changes in business strategy, unstable management and weak direction,” observed Susanna Nicoletti, a luxury professor and founder of fashion industry newsletter SUN DeLuxe on Substack.

“We cannot deny that this brand is deeply destabilized by so many inconsistent changes,” she continued. “This may be one of those cases where the brand life cycle follows that of its founder, who seems to be detached from the brand.”

Nicoletti sees DVF as “one of those lost brands unable to stay culturally relevant in a fast-changing market and society.”

Success With Target

A recent effort to get people talking about DVF fashion, not just Diane von Furstenberg herself, was a partnership with Target for a collection of over 200 items spanning women’s, girls’ and baby apparel and accessories, plus beauty and home.

Launched in March, the collection was designed with Diane’s 25-year-old granddaughter Talita von Furstenberg, who is carrying the von Furstenberg mantle forward as co-chairwoman of the Diane von Furstenberg brand.

By all accounts, it was a viral hit on TikTok and USA Today reported it almost instantly sold out.

The Target “TVF for DVF” collection proved there is still life in the brand and it can successfully cross over to the younger generation. However, managing a brand relaunch on DVF’s own, without a retailer the scope and size of Target doing the heavy lifting, is still ahead.

Turbulence Brings Opportunity

Brand management professor and luxury brand consultant Alessandro Balsossini Volpe believes the brand should strike while the iron is hot.

“There is now room for new or relaunched brands in the fashion market as usually happens in times of turbulence,” he said. “Many customers are fed up with unreasonable price hikes, repetitive designs and marketing strategies that often make brands look all the same, so customers are open to something really new.”

Retro 80s fashion is having a comeback and the classic Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress is an icon of 80s style. Target’s “TVF for DVF” wrap dresses sold for $50 and under. And earlier this year, DVF released a limited-edition Wrap 50 capsule collection priced from around $200 to $800, still affordable in fashionista circles.

But Balossini Volpe warns that DVF is facing a crowded, mature market that is much more competitive than in DVF’s early days. “DVF has a chance, provided they are brave enough to introduce fresh ideas in their business model and in the brand narrative, on top of interesting designs.”

“In other words, I fear that just approaching the market with the usual recipe – ‘We are DVF and we are back’ – may not be enough, no matter how nice the collections may be,” he concluded.

As for me, who came of age during Diane von Furstenberg’s prime and owns more than a couple of her signature wrap dresses, I’m rooting for her, Talita and di Boni to put DVF back in the fashion forefront where it belongs.