INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY 2008

March 27th, 2008

International Women’s day echoed throughout DVF stores worldwide in support of Vital Voices, the NGO that trains and empowers emerging women leaders and social entrepreneurs around the world. DVF held a series of events in her stores and donated 10% of sales from boutiques worldwide to Vital Voices from March 2nd to March 8th. To launch the initiative DVF hosted a presentation of the play “Seven” at the New York studio on March 6th. “Seven” is a groundbreaking work of documentary theater that captures the remarkable lives of a diverse and courageous group of women leaders around the world. The event was very well attended by friends, supporters, press and celebrities.

Simultaneously Baroness Mary Goudie, who sits on the Board of Vital Voices, hosted a cocktail reception in London at the DVF Mayfair location with a great group of women who shopped current DVF fashion to support the cause. On the same night in Madrid, DVF introduced Maria Pacheco, an extraordinary Guatemalan woman, who strives to achieve economic empowerment for rural women in Guatemala. This successful initiative proved that one person can indeed make a difference and as Maria Pacheco wrote in an email to Diane: “The alliance between Vital Voices and Diane von Furstenberg had me flying across the world this time and it was an amazing experience!!! More and more as women the awareness of who we are, our possibilities, our role in creating a beautiful world is becoming more evident and fascinating!!! Before the trip, I was somehow nervous… the journey from working with women from rural Guatemalan communities all the way to Washington through Vital Voices seemed far enough. To be able to go into a totally new world… the Fashion World is something I never imagined… but was possible because of Diane’s commitment to Vital Voices. Being in New York at Diane’s studio, being able to meet her and see her store then traveling across the ocean to Madrid to her boutique in Madrid to meet women interested in women in other parts of the world was incredible! About 50 women came to Diane’s store in Madrid and we shared experiences, we laughed, we dreamed… we got to meet each other. All of sudden Diane’s studio became much more than a store with beautiful dresses for women to feel wonderful in… it became a MEETING PLACE FOR WOMEN OF THE WORLD. Suddenly those dresses became like MESSENGERS OF CHANGE… each dress sold generating new possibilities for women very far away from the store… for women from the land of palms, for women from the land of drums, for women from the land of the ice…”

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