Author Guide · Memoir & Style
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Her first book, in 1976, told women how to be more attractive, confident and sensual. Her latest, in 2021, is a dictionary that runs from A to Z. In between she wrote about beds, baths and dinner tables, and twice about her own life: once at fifty, and once at sixty-seven, the year her wrap dress turned forty. This guide covers all eight in order, which memoir to open first, and the book she is writing now.
By Lisanne Swart · 8 books · Memoir & Style · 1976–2021 · Updated September 2026
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Quick answer
Diane von Furstenberg has written eight books between 1976 and 2021: two memoirs, Diane: A Signature Life (1998) and The Woman I Wanted to Be (2014), three books about the home, a beauty guide, an illustrated history of the wrap dress and an A to Z of her own words, Own It. The two memoirs tell the same life sixteen years apart, and the order they appeared in is not the order to read them in.
Where to Start with Diane von Furstenberg
If you want her whole life
→ The Woman I Wanted to Be (2014).
If you want the business story
→ Diane: A Signature Life (1998).
If you want her in small doses
→ Own It: The Secret to Life (2021).
If you love beautiful objects
→ The Bath (1993).
All 8 Diane von Furstenberg Books, in Order
Diane von Furstenberg's Book of Beauty: How to Become a More Attractive, Confident and Sensual Woman
She published it in 1976, two years after the wrap dress and the same year Newsweek put her on its cover. The subtitle promises a woman who is more attractive, confident and sensual, and the book's most repeated rule fits on a sticky note: attitude is everything. It has been out of print for decades, so copies are second-hand, but some readers never let go of theirs. One fashion writer still owns hers without its cover and says she read it at least fifty times.
Beds
A large-format book about beds and bedrooms, and the first of three she wrote about the rooms where private life happens. It set the pattern for the two that followed: a look inside other people's homes, many of them in the social world she moved in, held together by her own commentary. Out of print, and easiest to find second-hand.
The Bath
175 colour photographs of baths and bathrooms around the world, in five chapters that run from the history of washing to the private bathroom suite. Egyptians bathe before prayer, Greeks trust cold water, Romans make it social, and the thermal baths of Budapest get their own visit. It closes with five recipes for aromatic baths you can make at home. The idea behind it is hers: what makes us different is not the routine but how we choose to celebrate it.
The Table
The third home book moves to the dining room. She visits the tables of hosts she knows, looks at how each one sets a table and receives guests, and asks every host for a dish they actually serve. Dolly Parton's contribution is her meatloaf. Read after Beds and The Bath, it completes a small portrait of how one social world lived in the late twentieth century, room by room.
Diane: A Signature Life
Her first memoir, written at fifty, opens with the line she would repeat for years: most fairy tales end with the girl marrying the prince, and that is where hers began. It follows the business more closely than anything she wrote later: the wrap dress selling faster than it could be made, licensing her name away, a move to Paris in 1985 where she ran a French publishing house, the comeback through television shopping and the 1997 relaunch of the dress. Reviewers at the time found it breezy and full of famous names; read today, it is the most detailed record of how the company nearly disappeared and came back.
The Woman I Wanted to Be
Published in the year the wrap dress turned forty, and translated into eight languages. It gathers the most personal stories of her life, about family, love, beauty and business. Her mother, Lily, survived Auschwitz and weighed 49 pounds when she was liberated, and the lesson she passed on runs through every chapter: fear is not an option. The passage readers underline most is the one about love, where she argues that the most important relationship you will have is the one with yourself. Emma Grede opened a chapter of her own 2026 book with that idea.
Journey of a Dress
The illustrated history of the wrap dress, made for its fortieth birthday and the exhibition of the same name, which opened in Moscow in 2009 and reached Los Angeles in January 2014. It starts in 1972, when she arrived in New York with a suitcase of jersey dresses made at a friend's factory in Italy. Inside are photographs by Helmut Newton, Annie Leibovitz and Francesco Scavullo, portraits by Andy Warhol and Francesco Clemente, and the women who wore the dress, from Jerry Hall and Iman to Michelle Obama.
Own It: The Secret to Life
Her newest book is a dictionary. From A to Z, she picks the words she lives by and gives each one a short entry drawn from her own life. It is the smallest and most portable of her books, and it works best read out of order, a page at a time. Gloria Steinem's blurb names her friend's biggest gift as faith in our own uniqueness.
How Many Books Did Diane von Furstenberg Write?
Eight, between 1976 and 2021. Two of them she wrote with a collaborator, and none of them is a novel.
- Memoir — Diane: A Signature Life (1998) and The Woman I Wanted to Be (2014). Read the entries →
- The home — Beds (1991), The Bath (1993) and The Table (1996), large-format books about the rooms where private life happens. Read the entries →
- Style and advice — Diane von Furstenberg's Book of Beauty (1976) and Own It: The Secret to Life (2021). Read the entries →
- The dress — Journey of a Dress (2014), the illustrated history of the wrap dress. Read the entry →
In What Order to Read Diane von Furstenberg
Her books are not a series, so you can start anywhere. The one thing worth knowing is that the two memoirs overlap: Diane: A Signature Life was written at fifty and stays close to the business, while The Woman I Wanted to Be, sixteen years later, covers her whole life and is the more personal of the two. Read the later one first and the earlier one fills in the numbers behind stories you already know.
A reading path
1. The Woman I Wanted to Be (2014)
2. Diane: A Signature Life (1998)
3. Own It: The Secret to Life (2021)
4. The Bath (1993), then Beds (1991) and The Table (1996)
What she is writing now. Kindness has become her central theme. Her 2025 InCharge day in New York was built around the power of kindness, and in interviews she calls it a currency that compounds, something she once mistook for weakness. In 2026 she said on Emma Grede’s podcast Aspire that she is writing a book about it. No title, publisher or date has been announced yet, and this page will be updated when it is.
Quick facts about Diane von Furstenberg
- Born
- 31 December 1946, Brussels, Belgium
- Birth name
- Diane Simone Michele Halfin
- Known for
- The wrap dress, introduced in 1974
- Books
- 8, from Book of Beauty (1976) to Own It (2021)
- Memoirs
- Diane: A Signature Life (1998) and The Woman I Wanted to Be (2014)
- CFDA
- President of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, 2006–2019
- Documentary
- Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge (2024)
- Next book
- About kindness, in progress
How Diane von Furstenberg Writes: A Life in Rules
She writes in rules. “Attitude is everything” in 1976, “fear is not an option” in the story of her mother, a single word per page in Own It. The sentences are short and addressed to you, and the same few ideas return across fifty years: be in charge of your own life, do not blame anyone else for what happens to you, start with the relationship you have with yourself.
She has not always written alone. Her first book was written with Evelyn Portrait and her first memoir with the journalist Linda Bird Francke, and the three home books lean on photography as much as on text. What stays constant is the voice: confident, a little grand, and more candid about failure than the glamour around her suggests. The years she lost control of her own name, the near-collapse of the company and her cancer are all in the books.
Diane von Furstenberg on The Woman I Wanted to Be, in her own words
A fireside chat hosted by Authors at Google and Women at Google in 2014, the year her second memoir came out. Plays only when you press play.Frequently asked questions about Diane von Furstenberg's books
How many books has Diane von Furstenberg written?
Diane von Furstenberg has written eight books: Diane von Furstenberg's Book of Beauty (1976), Beds (1991), The Bath (1993), The Table (1996), Diane: A Signature Life (1998), The Woman I Wanted to Be (2014), Journey of a Dress (2014) and Own It: The Secret to Life (2021).
What is Diane von Furstenberg's newest book?
Her newest published book is Own It: The Secret to Life (Phaidon, 2021), an A to Z of the words she lives by. She has said she is working on a new book about kindness, but as of September 2026 no title, publisher or publication date has been announced.
Which Diane von Furstenberg memoir should I read first?
Start with The Woman I Wanted to Be (2014). It covers her whole life, with the most personal stories about family, love, beauty and business. Read Diane: A Signature Life (1998) afterwards if you want the detailed business story of how she lost and rebuilt her company.
What is the difference between Diane: A Signature Life and The Woman I Wanted to Be?
Diane: A Signature Life was written at fifty with Linda Bird Francke and follows her career closely, from the wrap dress to the 1997 relaunch. The Woman I Wanted to Be was published sixteen years later and is more personal, with more about her mother, love and illness.
Did Diane von Furstenberg write her books alone?
Not all of them. Her first book, Diane von Furstenberg's Book of Beauty, was written with Evelyn Portrait, and her first memoir, Diane: A Signature Life, was written with the journalist Linda Bird Francke.
Is Diane von Furstenberg's Book of Beauty still in print?
No. Diane von Furstenberg's Book of Beauty was published by Simon & Schuster in 1976 and is out of print, so copies are only available second-hand. The same is true of Beds, The Bath and The Table.
Is there a documentary about Diane von Furstenberg?
Yes. Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge (2024) is a feature-length documentary about her life and business. It opened the Tribeca Festival and was released on Hulu and Disney+, with interviews including Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton and Marc Jacobs.
Footnotes
- Wikipedia: Diane von Fürstenberg, biography and bibliography
- Publishers Weekly via Amazon: review of The Table, with the dates of Beds and The Bath
- Google Books: The Bath, chapters and photographs
- Biblio: Diane: A Signature Life, first edition with Linda Bird Francke
- Open Library: Book of Beauty with Evelyn Portrait
- Goodreads: Journey of a Dress
- Library of Congress National Book Festival: Own It
- The WIE Suite: Diane von Furstenberg on kindness, and her books
- Yahoo Lifestyle: InCharge 2025 and the power of kindness
Bibliography last verified 24 September 2026. The forthcoming book about kindness was mentioned by von Furstenberg on the Aspire with Emma Grede podcast in 2026; nothing has been announced in print.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all hers.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Love is about relationships, yet the most important relationship is the one you have with yourself.”
— Diane von Furstenberg, The Woman I Wanted to Be (2014)
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