DVF Keeps it All in the Family

DVF has a new muse, and her initials are T.V.F.

They stand for Talita von Furstenberg, the 18-year-old granddaughter of Diane von Furstenberg, who made her debut Sunday along with the house’s first collection from Nathan Jenden.

According to Jenden, T.V.F., like her grandmother, embodies the spirit of the house. “It’s a brand that bridges generations,” said Jenden, who was named chief design officer at the beginning of the year, replacing Jonathan Saunders, who resigned in December.

Witness the new “DVF track suit” composed of stretch jersey tunics and flared trousers in an archival geometric print, the remodeled wrap dress (and shirt and velvet tuxedo jumpsuit) that was actually a short chiffon-print number with a ruffle at the hem layered over a long ruffled slip dress, and the bird-of-paradise print on everything from stretch net separates to a red-carpet gown.

“I would wear almost everything,” T.V.F. said with enthusiasm during the collection presentation, and indeed, in a video that played as a backdrop to the show, she did. Then she turned to her grandmother, sitting nearby, and pointing at a bright green shearling said, “D.V.F.” — she calls her grandmother by her initials — “that would look good on you.”

Jenden agreed.

This is actually his second tour with the brand. He was its creative director from 2001-2011 (Diane von Furstenberg is his daughter’s godmother), and his return to the brand is one that he and she both characterize as a kind of “coming home.”

Indeed, there’s history between the three: He and Talita worked together when she was 9 years old and accompanied her grandmother to Florence for a DVF guest show at Pitti Uomo. He has watched her grow up. “I’ve known him all my life,” she said.

So when Jenden came back and had to get a collection together in a hurry — “he plunged right in at the deep end,” the elder von Furstenberg said, holding her nose to demonstrate a big leap — he said he had two women in mind: the grandmother and the granddaughter.

“I feel like I’ve waited my whole life to do something for DVF,” Talita said. But, she added, her grandmother “kept saying, ‘When it’s the right moment, when it’s the right moment.'”

That moment is, apparently, now. And although she is studying international relations as a freshman in college, T.V.F. said “fashion and design has always been my passion” and she hopes that she and Jenden can collaborate in more substantive ways in the future. The muse gig is just the tip of the iceberg.

“She and I are very similar,” Diane von Furstenberg observed dryly of her granddaughter. Then she patted the pouf next to her. “Talita! Come sit here,” she called. The two snuggled in together to watch the show.