The night after the Academy Awards, where Barbra Streisand gravely told an audience of Hollywood personages that “the time has come” and handed the Best Director Oscar to Kathryn Bigelow, the first woman to ever take the award, New York designer Diane von Furstenberg hosted a party at her meatpacking district store for International Women’s Day.
“I’m proud to be a woman every day, but today we’re celebrating,” Ms. von Furstenberg, wearing a sequined purple dress, told the Transom. She was surrounded by Whitney Port look-alikes with cherubic faces wearing multileveled heels and patterned dresses. “I think it’s good to remind ourselves to be proud,” she added. “Not to put down men, but I think that women can improve the world.”
Ms. von Furstenberg has been on an estrogen binge lately: authoring a comic book titled Be the Wonder Woman You Can Be; establishing the DVF Awards, honoring international accomplished women March 13 at the U.N.; and putting together a compilation CD called Proud to be a Woman, proceeds of which will go to Vital Voices, an organization that empowers, you guessed it, women. The CD features the singles “Work That” by Mary J. Blige (“Work that/ Work that/ Work that/ Girl don’t hold back/ You just be yourself”) and “L.E.S. Artistes” by Santigold (“I can say I hope it will be worth what I give up/ If I could stand up mean for the things that I believe”).
Also the song “Shine,” by British R&B singer Estelle, the designer’s special guest that evening. “I was like ‘Hell, yes! All for women, I’m down,’” Estelle said of the project. “I met Diane very briefly at Fashion Week, but I always wore her stuff voluntarily, I like the clothes, you know? She does the best wrap dresses, that’s how she got me; I feel so comfortable in those.”
When asked why she was proud to be a woman, Estelle said, “Because we get to dress in so many different outfits. I know the men are pissed.” Speaking of the Oscars: “The men are just ‘I’m in Tom Ford, uh’ … and the women are like ‘I’m in Versace! I’m in this! I’m in that!’ It’s so much fun.” Was there anything women still have to overcome? “I think whatever we still have to accomplish, we get to make up for it by having fantastic shoes, having boobs and having ass.”
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