Venice is her stage

She spends about five months a year among the palazzos and the canals. It is where she thinks, and where she now does her real work.

“It's my stage. It's where I think.”

One dress made her

DVF broke out in the 1970s on a single garment inspired by ballerina wrap tops: comfortable, practical, cheap enough to actually buy.

Tired of the wrap dress

For years the question annoyed her because she had done so much else. Enough already, she would say, and then keep answering it anyway.

“I've done so many more.”

Watergate gave her the idea

Watching coverage in 1974, she saw Julie Nixon Eisenhower give a speech in her wrap top and a snake-print skirt. Make it one piece, she thought.

“And that's when I thought, Oh, you know what? We should turn it into a dress.”

A million sold by 1976

At 29 she landed the cover of Newsweek, billed as the most marketable woman in fashion since Coco Chanel. Her own word for it: insane.

“the most marketable female in fashion since Coco Chanel”

Born from survival

Her mother left a death camp weighing about 49 pounds, was fed back to health in six months, and had Diane 13 months later in Brussels.

“God saved me so I could give you life. By giving you life, you gave me mine back.”

A love life on record

A prince, an open marriage, a fling with Richard Gere, Warren Beatty and Ryan O'Neal in one weekend, and a girl she loved at boarding school.

“Well, I once boasted about that, and then it stuck with me forever.”

Barry, and no conflict

She encouraged Diller to write the memoir revealing his attraction to men. He had told her long ago, and it changed nothing between them.

“He's my soulmate. He's my companion of life. I mean, he's everything.”

The winter of her life

She turns 80 on New Year's Eve, still runs the DVF Awards in Venice, and thinks hard about mortality and what she leaves behind.

“As somebody who loved life and tried to honor it in every way.”