The Wrap Designer’s Rap

“The wrap dress moulds the body and evokes a woman’s body language. She can wear it anyway she likes: conservatively to the playground,not-so-conservatively somewhere else. Also,I use very bold,striking prints. There’s a movement implied…like a leopard’s spots,” she said in an interview,comparing the dress to a Roman toga or the Indian sari adding that the difference was that the wrap dress was made from jersey.

The sari,von Fursternberg would explain later to other curious journalists,too had a body language and India didn’t need to look anywhere for originality in design and style.

Her sari-wrap dress comment gave me an insight into understand multi-cultural identities in dressing. India’s unstitched drapes—the sari,the mekhla,the dhoti,the lungi,the shawl,have an implied personality. It’s tentative till it remains folded in a wardrobe or in a stack of clothes. It begins to breathe when the wearer’s body language gets transferred to the garment. The same sari worn by different women with different personalities,walk and talk,can make different statements—some of power,some of enslavement. Some wear it like an Albatross,others like a little black dress.

Recently,at the Jaipur conference on Fashion Beyond Borders,I argued for the relevance of the Little Black Sari in India. How the modern sari can substitute the “idea”of the little black dress: a key piece,sexy,formal-informal,symbolic. In the next few years,we may just be debating why heavy,coarse weaves (like Ikats) are feminist while the Little Black Sari (designer made from gossamer fabrics with a bra-tube blouse,a slinky zipped up petticoat,worn with killer stilettos),objectifies women.

That brings me back to another significant comment made by Diane von Fursterberg. When asked if fashion objectified women,she didn’t defend it unconditionally. “The industry does objectify women and I don’t like that at all. But fashion is also fun. It’s fun for a woman to wake up and decide what to wear. I consider myself a feminist because it’s my mission in life to empower women—through my work,through mentoring,through philanthropy,” she told the journalist.

This is clearly a woman who has known enough about pessimism to explore its other side–optimism. Married at the age of 23,to a man from a princely family,von Furstenberg would later have two children but would also seek a divorce. She disappeared from the fashion scene for a long time to come back in 1997. During those years,she battled tongue cancer and believes she got it because she couldn’t express herself.

Curiously enough,now at 66,she gives fashion and the DVF brand (the wrap dress too) a distinct voice. Its the voice of confidence which can only emerges only after you have been down under and have made more than a nodding acquaintance with adversity. Which is perhaps why the DVF Awards presented annually are given to women who display leadership,strength and courage.