It’s a Wrap: Hadassah Southern Calif. Members View Diane Von Furstenberg Exhibit

The L’Dor V’Dor and Adira chapters of Hadassah Southern California (HSC) had a wonderful turnout recently for a tour of the “Diane Von Furstenberg: A Woman Before Fashion” wrap dress exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.

One signature dress style, a zillion patterns of jersey and some evening silks. What an imagination von Furstenberg has! To paraphrase her own words, these dresses, which have no buttons or zippers, take no time to slip on –and (wink) less time to slip off.

The 22 women who attended enjoyed a lovely lunch together, where we bonded over Hadassah events and updates and each other’s good news.

One of the best announcements came when Margie Lunt, co-president of  L’Dor V’Dor, announced that chapter members had raised $18,000 towards furnishing, equipping and providing supplies for an infant room at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in Israel.

As we walked through the exhibition galleries, we were in awe of von Furstenberg’s adventuresome spirit and her lively passionate life. Von Furstenberg was the daughter of a Holocaust surviving mother, who spent many years in the Auschwitz concentration camp before being liberated. She went to live in Belgium, where she married Diane von Furstenberg’s father (who had fled to Switzerland to escape the Nazis), and gave birth to her.

Always a free spirit, von Furstenberg had no idea what to focus on career-wise but finally settled on art and design. Opportunities and luck, as far as money and management go, played a determining role in this determined young woman’s career. But though fortune smiled on her, as is so often the story, her life was still a rocky rollercoaster of failed marriages and eventual bankruptcy.

Nevertheless, gutsy as always and full of survivor spirit, von Furstenberg knew that she could revive her life and her business. She did that so well that First Lady Michelle Obama wore von Furstenberg’s signature wrap dress of the 1970s at her first White House Christmas gala. It has been labeled the working woman’s dress by the QVC television shopping channel, which is affiliated with Barry Diller, von Furstenberg’s American-born billionaire husband.

Hadassah and its Adira and L’Dor V’Dor chapters support independent creative Jewish women. If you are like-minded, look for us on Hadassah and inquire about what we’re doing in your neck of the woods.

Ronnie is a member of the Hadassah Writers’ Circle, a dynamic and diverse writing group for leaders and members to express their thoughts and feelings about all the things Hadassah does to make the world a better place. It’s where they celebrate their personal Hadassah journeys and share their Jewish values, family traditions and interpretations of Jewish texts. Since 2019, the Hadassah Writers’ Circle has published nearly 650 columns in The Times of Israel Blogs and other Jewish media outlets. Interested? Please contact hwc@hadassah.org.