She’s among a handful of designers whose oeuvre captured a moment in the Zeitgeist – Yves Saint Laurent may be one and Ralph Lauren another.

Then there’s that Newsweek cover, the Andy Warhol portrait, the marriage into European aristocracy, the powerful friends and confidants. Sitting deep in the cut of this glamourfest is the determined visionary and feminist businesswoman, philanthropist (and CFDA chairman) and mentor Diane von Furstenberg.

As part of The Impression/CFDA collaboration, Constance C.R. White sat down exclusively with the designer and power-broker as she disclosed how she’s making big changes in her company and in her life to keep the brand fresh. Early evidence: New York Fashion Week. Gone are the big, splashy, people-watching events in the largest venue. Instead, the designer is creating a relatively intimate affair at her headquarters in New York’s Meatpacking District. Here are some of the highlights of the conversation; go to  http://theimpression.com/ for the full interview.

Constance C.R. White: Diane, you’ve been really good at personally promoting your brand. What can you share with us about how you do that with image and marketing?

Diane von Furstenberg: “I don’t like saying marketing because marketing sometimes sounds like such a negative word. Marketing often seems manipulative and not sincere. But that is changing. It’s about being authentic and everything you do having the same point of view. How do you stay relevant in this business? It’s called fashion, so it goes in and out of fashion, right? You have to understand who your consumer is. We make real clothes for real women and every now and then, it’s the young girls who bring their mothers back. So our target is really the Millennials, the women at the beginning of their lives. What we are doing with this new era is we are focusing on putting the woman in the center of everything we do.”

C.W.: Well, who was at the center before?

DVF: “Well, I don’t know. It’s what he [CEO Paolo Riva, who joined seven months ago] has started with the third era of this brand. When he first came in, he started doing that. At first I wasn’t really understanding it, but now it’s so understandable. Also, we are trying to give them the right clothes at the right time because between showing everything too early and shipping everything too early and stores marking down everything, it’s like a huge, crazy thing. So we want to do it right. I, as a designer, feel like the shows should be more for the customer.”

C.W.: So how do you now stay relevant?

DVF: “We are putting a new team together so there is now going to be a young team that sees the brand with fresh eyes. Together, they are going to run the company. What I love about [Paolo Riva] is how much respect he has for the brand; he is holding the flag and is now putting a team together.  [Riva just named Sarah Willersdorf, a former managing director at Boston Consulting Group, chief marketing officer.] I am still the founder and the owner, but I will be pulling myself out a little bit, focusing more on the voice. You realize when you are successful that you have a voice. And I think it’s more and more important for me to use my voice for people who have no voice. The DVF Awards (which recognizes and funds women making a difference in their community as entrepreneurs or social activists, for instance) is something that I started six years ago. That’s part of the things that I will focus most on. Gradually, I will be able to pull myself out and let them make sure that this brand lasts forever and is forever young.”

C.W: You’ve developed into a brand that stands for female empowerment. How do you connect that to the consumer?

DVF:  “I think you should talk to Paolo. I think you should talk to him because the company has three eras. American dream was when I was in my 20’s and I lived an American dream. Then I sold the company and 17 years ago I started again, when the young, hip girls were buying the old dresses in vintage shops. Now the brand is more than 40 years old. It has proven itself and it is a love brand. People have souvenirs with the brand, familiarity with the brand. Their mother, everybody has a story about the brand. So now the challenge is how do you stay relevant after me? The first thing I did is I hired a young CEO, Italian, who really loves the brand and loves the potential of the brand and he is now hiring his team and we are starting.”

I am the founder. I was a girl who invented herself while I was inventing the company. I did not have a business plan; I did not have anything. I am a founder. I had [built] this huge thing. Then when I started again, even though I was 50, I still behaved like this young, little girl with a bunch of enthusiasm and I took a bunch of young girls with me and we did it again. I can’t do this again.”

C.W.: Paolo brings his own expertise and clearly you’re letting him use it, that’s why you have him here. But he would be a fool not to look back and tap into what you have done and learned. So what are some of your key tips for him?

DVF: “My tips are being the friend in the closet, being practical, being sexy, being effortless, being timely, being the friend to the woman. Making sure that at all times you are the friend. A woman wakes up in the morning, she feels bad, she has her period, she doesn’t know what to do, go for your friend.”

C.W: It has been said that we are in a golden age of entrepreneurship and I think Diane and her brand represent this strongly for young women, from what I have heard. How do you connect this to your customer and even women at large?

Paolo Riva: We are conscious of what we represent when we talk about marketing, communications, PR. We want to leverage what we call the DVF platform. DVF is the brand that Diane herself created. It’s a wonderful platform: You can become the woman you want to be. This platform for women applies to different realities – women in art, women in the movies, women in business and finance, women who are entrepreneurs. This platform more and more will allow us to communicate in a more real way with women. This sounds very serious, but we want to connect with women in a more friendly way. Sometimes it’s just what kind of woman you want to be this morning. Sometimes it’s what kind of woman you want to be for the man you want to seduce. Sometimes it’s what kind of woman you want to be at work.

DVF: See, the thing is, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew the woman I wanted to be. As I became the woman I wanted to be, I helped other women be the women they wanted to be.”