Design Your Life | Diane von Furstenberg | TEDxVeniceBeach

what was Venice Beach before May 1944 in occupied Belgium a young girl aged 22 gets arrested because she was doing his distance and bringing fake papers and gets transferred after four days in cattle train she arrives in Auschwitz she is 22 years old the war is almost over everywhere but she goes there is then the work camps then there is a famous death walk that she goes to another camp ravensberg and then another camp as the German we're losing the war by the time she arrived at the third camp she was very very bad she could hardly move she weighed 49 pounds one day they woke up and the German had gone and the Russian came and the Russian raped them and then they God and then the American came and they were put in hospital she weighed 49 pounds but she went back to Belgium and her mother fed her little by little a little bit by little bit every 10 minutes so she grew like a balloon and six months later her fiancee who was in Switzerland came back they met and they got married and the doctor told them you can get married but you can absolutely not have a child because if you have a child you won't survive and the child won't be normal well sure enough nine months later I was born and I and that was the story of my mother my mother used to say to me she used to write and tell me God saved me so that I can give you life by giving you life you gave me my life back you are my torch of freedom so this is a lot for a little girl and there I was with the torch of freedom so the three lessons that my mother gave me that are the most valuable to me one is fear is not an option so she would actually if I was afraid of the dark she would put me in the dark closet and lock me in the dark closet today she would probably go to jail but anyway what happens if you are in a dark closet first of all after a few minutes you realize that it's not dark it doesn't stay dark and even if it did you shouldn't be afraid so fear is not an option was something that was really put into me the other one was no matter what you can never be a victim it doesn't matter she used to say I looked at the German in the eyes and anyway never be a victim when they arrived at the camp she always said that one of the worst thing where those cattle train that they were for four days going from Belgium to Poland so she became friendly with a woman who was in her 40s and she said no matter what I will never leave this woman I will never leave this woman this woman spoke a little German so she's just stuck to this woman when they arrived they were shaved and they were put in a long long line and there was a soldier who would say you go right you go left you go right you go left and then behind this man in an elevated something just like about this there was another man of a higher rank all dressed in white and he didn't move and so when time came to for the friend of my mother the soldiers say you go right and my mother did not wait she went right following and the soldier let her do that this other man who hadn't moved the entire time when she took my mother hit her I mean whipped her and threw her on the other side and she looked at this man with such hate and such hate and why why do you have to do that she's never hated anybody so much well the truth is that this man actually saved her life because the people who were going on the ride went to the gas chamber so the reason I'm telling you that is we all go through situation that something completely goes wrong and we think it's the worst thing in the world so maybe it's not so this is a very dramatic example of it but it works it's a friend of yours complains so I grew up feeling a little bit like an alien in Belgium everybody has blonde straight hair and I had a little black curly hair and I was born after the war I didn't have a brother a sibling until I was six so I was very much on my own so I had books I love to read and I love to imagine things I started to write my diary and I really wonder will anything ever happen to me I mean Belgium is so sad and it rains all the time and the more it rains the more my hair gets curly and I really did not know what was going to happen but at that time really early on I had a revelation and my revelation what happened watching myself in the mirror my mother had a big vanity with a mirror and I was looking at this mirror and it's not that I thought I was pretty because I didn't but what I liked about this mirror is if I made moves she would make the same movement and I could stay hours doing this mayor will do this I would like them and that's the day I realized that I actually had control over myself and it's probably being the most useful thing I've ever had and that's why I always say the most important relationship in life is the one you have with yourself because after that any other relationship is a plus and not a mas so my mother wanted a big life for me so she put me in boarding school in Switzerland and in England I was starting to live my adventure I went to university in Geneva Switzerland and I met this wonderful beautiful good-looking young Prince Aegon Furstenberg and I was dying to be independent more than anything I wanted to be independent I wanted to have my own life design my life know what I wanted to do and when you start in life you don't really know there's all these doors in front of you which which is going to be your door and my door happened to be meeting a man who had a factory and he had a printing factory in Italy and there he used to be print he used to print scarves for Gucci and Ferragamo and all these places and there I was just watching him screaming at his workers it was quite obnoxious actually and but I learned everything and with the workers in Italy you learn everything because a color is their father was a colour is this the grandfather was the colorist so I learned everything about color and I asked the man please please may I make some samples from your factory and we'll try to go and sell them in America then he said okay my boyfriend stops to raw in Rome I go and visit him in Rome we get engaged goes on to Southeast Asia I go back to the factory my friend manufacture drives me from factories factory I arrive in Milan I'm not feeling well I think it's because he's driving a Maserati no I'm pregnant so I find myself pregnant with this wonderful attractive rich man this was not the way I had planned it I wanted to be independent everybody was gonna say why this little girl got him because she was pregnant long story short marriage was decided for two months later and so I made my first collection I absolutely wanted to be independent and I came to America I came slowly I decided to come by boat because I wanted to dream about my future life of course I was so nauseous that I dreamt about nothing and and I I arrived in America and I I didn't know what I was doing I had a suitcase full of clothes I had one baby 13 months later I had another baby going back to the fact I took a hotel suite I showed my first dresses I had miserable little orders I would go back to Italy begging for this man to make me the dresses and he said I don't have a room I have a big factory please please please anyone on and then little by little there was a little rap job there little rap job became a wrap dress and the Rob dress was born in 1974 and I lived an American dream it was the most amazing thing I went through I mean I had a great salesman who knew all the stores and he would send me everywhere I went from store to store and I was selling confidence I would sell as I was getting confident myself I was selling confidence and because what I was selling was addressed it all made sense I related to the women I it was just an incredible adventure and it was also the women's liberation it was so fun to be a young woman at the time we were so free we thought we invented freedom so you know everybody says that I made that dress but actually that dress made me and my dream had always been to live a man's life in a woman's body and I did it by then I'm separated from my husband but in a very very friendly but I'm feeling free I am independent I made a lot of money I had two children I was like at the top of the world I remember one day and it's a wonderful story one day I was because I had small children at home so when I travel I tried to take early plane in the morning and then I was going to Pittsburgh from New York in an early plane and no man old man and I'm the only woman in the plane and I'm you know kind of cute and wearing a little dress with legs and things and that that day I was on the front page of The Wall Street Journal and so I had all kinds of magazines and newspaper and on top of it was the Wall Street Journal and so there's this guy next to me and he's trying well he's looking and he's trying huh what what is he gonna say to start a conversation and then he says to me why does a girl like you really read The Wall Street Journal so I looked at him and I thought jerk and and and I say I obviously was so easy to say but look I did I am on the front page of the news but I actually decided to say nothing and that was one of the best best best satisfaction I ever had in my life that I said nothing of course every time I make a speaking engagement I tell the story alright but of course not not everything goes right not everything and what goes up must go down after the huge success I had you know everybody in America had one two three five ten twenty wrap dresses and so overnight it's saying you know it kind of sank and I had to sell my business meanwhile I had started a cosmetic business and so my children grow up they went to boarding school I fall in love with a writer in Paris I moved to France and I think fashion business is over for me and I stay in Paris and I do a publishing house for five years then the love affair is not so great anymore I'm I miss my children I miss America I come back to America and there I had a really really hard time because I realized that what I had done my work my brand at the time you didn't even call it a brand new you didn't was my identity and I had lost my identity and as a matter of fact within two years I got a cancer of the tongue and at the base of the tongue and I do think that the reason I had that is because I had lost my expression I couldn't express myself anyway I had to face that and I did and I learned how to meditate I learned what the doctor could do and I learned what my own power and that was 22 years ago so we're good so anyway today I am act as you watching me today I am 70 years old everyone tells me why you still everybody you're 17 and I said I don't understand when some oh you're 5 years old you ate already you're 12 you're 18 and then all of a sudden nothing I don't understand I mean I said I've lived so fully I should be hundred and twenty years old so anyway I am now as I was turning 70 a few months ago I wanted to take time and think what kind of woman I was going to be for my third act what how do I stay relevant and I was doing Tai Chi I have a very good instructor of Tai Chi and when you do Tai Chi he said focus on the intention and I stopped him and I say intention tell me more about intention and he said well if you focus on on force you will fail or break if you focus on energy you will stagnate but if you focus on intention and think about it a lot you will achieve your goal and your power so this was a wonderful gift that he gave me and so as I am today and my age I decided that that what I want to do is I want to use my voice I want to use my experience I want to use my knowledge my connection in order to engage more and more the conversation especially with women I have never met a woman who is not strong or women are strong but sometimes it's a brother a religion a father or sometimes it's just themselves oh I don't want to make him feel small oh I don't want to do this we all are like that but yet if there is a tragedy somehow always the woman takes over becomes a lion and saves the situation so my advice is don't wait for the tragedy to know that you are strong work on yourself work on that knowledge of you're strong if you know you're strong you don't always have to show it but that is very much what I want to spend the rest of my life to do is to capture to use my voice to capture voices of other women and weave into fabric of strength compassion and impact to make this world a better world thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 187,305

Rating: 4.9552312 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Design, Business, Fashion, Feminism, Future, Innovation, Motivation, Women

Id: ta2__XHL5qo

Length: 17min 48sec (1068 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 27 2018