Diane von Furstenberg by Gioia Diliberto

Author:Gioia Diliberto
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-05-29T16:00:00+00:00

Volcano of Love

While Lily recuperated in a clinic in Geneva, Diane flew to Japan on a business trip, taking her children and Olivier Gelbsman. Reeling from her mother’s breakdown, her failed romance with Gere, and severe overwork, she decided to stop on the way home for a rest in Bali. Decades before Elizabeth Gilbert turned her own search for “balance” on this tiny Hindu island into the best-seller Eat Pray Love, Diane found the answer to her spiritual malaise.

She checked herself, the children, and Gelbsman into the Oberoi Hotel, a luxury seaside resort with thatched villas and vivid gardens surrounded by lush jungle and volcanoes visible on the horizon. One morning, just as the sun was rising from the quiet blue sea, Diane set off for a stroll along the white ribbon of beach that stretched out from the hotel. Suddenly, a shadow crossed her path; she looked up to see a tall, handsome man with a brown beard, a green stone in one earlobe, and a sarong tied around his waist. He looked strong, sexy, and available.

The man was a South American artist who, at thirty years old, was three years her junior. His name was Paulo. He made a living selling traditional Balinese clothing and lived in a bamboo house off the beach. Diane felt an instant connection to Paulo, as if they’d known each other forever, and a powerful physical attraction. At the end of the day, she brought him to meet Gelbsman, who was sunbathing on the beach. “Diane is wearing a big hat, and Paulo is wearing a sarong, and because I’m lying on my back, I can see right up to what’s under it,” recalls Gelbsman. “I said something really terrible but hysterical to Diane like, ‘That’s not for you.’ She became so mad at me she didn’t speak to me for the rest of the trip.”

By then she was smitten. Paulo made her feel like a natural woman, in the words of the Aretha Franklin song, and she invited him to New York. Diane was a stressed-out businesswoman and single mother. She was lonely. At the end of the day, when the streets of New York bustled with commuters in taxis and buses on their way to high-rise apartments and brownstone walk-ups, Paulo would be someone to go home to, someone to eat dinner with, someone to talk to about something besides look books and Passion Pink lipstick.

At first Paulo stayed with Gelbsman in his apartment on Eighth Street and Fifth Avenue. Diane knew that her children had to get used to him before he moved permanently into their lives. To introduce him to her friends, she threw a party. “It was winter, and I remember he was wearing a sarong and a cashmere sweater,” says Gelbsman. “We get to Diane’s and everybody you could imagine is there, including Diana Ross and Diana Vreeland.”

Diane’s friends were mostly appalled that she actually was serious about “this guy she met on the beach,” recalls Fran Lebowitz.

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