<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" ELLE DECOR: How would you characterize great design? DIANE VON FURSTENBERG: There&amp;#039;s design and there&amp;#039;s art. Good design is total harmony. There&amp;#039;s no better designer than nature\u2014if you look at a branch or a leaf, it&amp;#039;s perfect. It&amp;#039;s all function. Art is different. It&amp;#039;s about emotion. It&amp;#039;s about suffering and beauty\u2014but mostly suffering! ED: Do you think the current economic climate is good or bad for design? DVF: A challenging economy is always good for design. It unites necessity and functionality. You are forced to be creative with poor materials.  ED: You created the wrap dress, one of the great problem-solving designs of the 20th century, during the early 1970s, another period of economic turmoil. DVF: It&amp;#039;s more amazing to me now than it was then. It&amp;#039;s crazy that something has survived so long and continues to appeal to so many different young women. It&amp;#039;s still 15 percent of my business. It&amp;#039;s functional, extremely flattering, and very reliable. It&amp;#039;s definitely a good design. Anything that has survived that long is not hype. ED: Did being a woman give you a better sense of how to design that dress? DVF: Remember, I had no experience at the time. I had just gotten married, I was pregnant, and I was moving to America. But I wanted to be independent, so I asked this tycoon I had interned for if he would let me make a few samples that I would try to sell in America, and he said yes. Of course, the wrap has always existed. It&amp;#039;s the toga, the kimono, the dress without buttons or zippers. What was new about mine was that it was jersey, so it molded to the body, which made a woman feel very feline.  ED: What is the difference between how men and women design clothes? DVF: Christian Lacroix once told me that women designers make clothes and men designers make costumes. I think that&amp;#039;s true.  ED: There&amp;#039;s plenty of design on runways that&amp;#039;s not very functional. When you see those clothes, what do you think? DVF: It&amp;#039;s their problem, not mine. ED: Where is the most exciting design happening?  DVF: I&amp;#039;d have to say Africa. They use and recycle everything there. The way they put things together\u2014things that really have to work and perform a function\u2014that to me is great design. ED: Have you bought anything lately that you love?  DVF: The iPad! What is better designed than that? I read magazines on it, I play Scrabble. I use it for everything. ED: Is that why you moved across from the Apple Store in the Meatpacking District?  DVF: I was there first. They followed me!  But wait, there&amp;#039;s more ... Click here to see Diane von Furstenberg&amp;#039;s fashionable new fabrics for the home.   Plus, check out 12 things the designer can&amp;#039;t live without. Click here to see more of our Women in Design. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elledecor.com/celebrity-style/a2842/women-in-design-diane-von-furstenberg-a-66851/?src=shelter_footer>