A funeral happened in Feb. 23 in Rome, her birthplace, however no reason behind loss of life was made public.
In an interview final yr with the Monetary Occasions, Ms. von Fürstenberg was requested to recall one of the best recommendation she ever acquired. She stated it was to “learn to say no.”
“However it’s a lesson,” she added, “I by no means mastered.”
This outlined her lifetime of staggering privilege, in addition to heartbreak and tragedy, that performed out in shiny magazines and gossip columns on each side of the Atlantic starting within the Nineteen Fifties.
She was on cinema marquees in movies such because the spy spoof “Matchless” (1967) and the spaghetti Western “Deaf Smith & Johnny Ears” (1973) alongside Anthony Quinn. She was within the pages of Vogue, was photographed by style big Helmut Newton and walked the runway in a Mondrian costume for Yves Saint Laurent.
She helped launch the profession of designer Karl Lagerfeld. She danced with Frank Sinatra. She organized a movie pageant in Manila with Imelda Marcos.
She carried the princess title from a peerage with Austro-Hungarian roots. Her household additionally had newer connections to wealth. Her mom got here from Turin’s highly effective Agnelli household, which included the Fiat auto fortune. (The von Fürstenberg title would achieve additional recognition from dressmaker Diane von Fürstenberg, who married Ms. von Fürstenberg’s brother, Egon.)
As a teen, Ira von Fürstenberg was wooed by certainly one of Europe’s most celebrated rakes, Prince Alfonso von Hohenlohe-Langenburg, often called the “King of Golf equipment” and the mastermind behind turning the sleepy Spanish fishing village of Marbella right into a luxurious hotspot. (He additionally launched the Volkswagen Beetle to Latin American markets.)
The prince proposed to her by telegram after he claimed he noticed her in a imaginative and prescient after he survived the crash of a non-public airplane in rural Connecticut in 1954.
Ms. von Fürstenberg’s household wanted particular permission from the Vatican to permit the 15-year-old lady to marry Alfonso, who was greater than twice her age. The couple arrived for the 1955 marriage ceremony in Venice aboard a gondola with Ms. von Fürstenberg’s veil flowing again to the toes of the gondolier.
Life journal ran images. Italian newspapers breathlessly referred to as the occasion the “marriage ceremony of the century.” From her Agnelli aspect, the newlyweds acquired a specifically made purple Fiat Cinquecento. In the course of the couple’s travels after the marriage, the surrealist grasp Salvador Dalí made the request to color Ms. von Fürstenberg within the nude. He was refused.
“I used to be not tempted in any respect,” Ms. von Fürstenberg recalled in 2019, “since I used to be just a little lady who simply bought married and was nonetheless within the honeymoon stage.”
The wedding quickly started to fray. In 1960, von Hohenlohe discovered her in Mexico Metropolis with an industrialist from São Paulo named Francisco “Child” Pignatari, who Time journal as soon as described as holding “the undisputed title of Brazil’s champion playboy.” Von Hohenlohe took their two sons and, whereas on the run, generally dressed them as ladies to keep away from non-public detectives and others in search of to return the kids to Ms. von Fürstenberg and declare a reward. (They later agreed to separate custody.)
Ms. von Fürstenberg obtained a divorce in Mexico and married Pignatari, 23 years her senior, in Reno in 1961. Whereas Ms. von Fürstenberg was visiting Las Vegas in 1964, a pal of Pignatari’s delivered a message to her: “Child desires to go away you,” journalists reported on the time. The divorce was finalized shortly.
Regardless of her turbulent non-public life, or maybe due to the publicity rounding it, Ms. von Fürstenberg was in demand by the style world. What she did, what she wore, what she stated helped stir traits. The designer Valentino acknowledged her sway sufficient to place her answerable for his fragrance division within the Nineteen Seventies.
In 1987, rumors started to unfold that Ms. von Fürstenberg may marry Monaco’s Prince Rainier III, the widower of Princess Grace, the previous Grace Kelly. Ms. von Fürstenberg swatted down the hypothesis as false. “Simply mates,” she stated of her relationship with the prince.
That didn’t cease Britain’s Princess Margaret from getting in a dig in regards to the prospects of Ms. von Fürstenberg tying the knot in Monaco. “Such an enormous lady,” she was quoted as saying, “for such a small nation.”
Virginia Carolina Theresa Pancrazia Galdina zu Fürstenberg was born on April 17, 1940, in Rome. The household spent World Struggle II in Lausanne, Switzerland, after which settled in Venice. The younger Ira, who adopted that first title at an early age, used “von,” which means of or from, for her surname. She frolicked at English and Swiss boarding colleges.
After her second divorce — nonetheless solely in her mid-20s — she met the Italian movie producer Dino De Laurentiis on a airplane. She had no performing expertise, however De Laurentiis later stated he noticed star potential. She was solid in a starring position as a “lovely however lethal” undercover agent in “Matchless,” which was co-produced by De Laurentiis. Over greater than 25 movies, she developed a repute for sultry characters bordering on the risqué, however she drew the road at showing bare.
“For the second,” she was quoted as telling her father early in her movie profession, “my performing doesn’t have the identical energy to make individuals flock to the cinema as my physique.”
Some movie writers began calling her the “Pinup Princess.” In late 1966, De Laurentiis leaked phrase from display screen assessments that Ms. von Fürstenberg was being thought of for the main position in “Barbarella,” a sci-fi romp launched in 1968. The half went to Jane Fonda, whose husband, Roger Vadim, was the director.
“I didn’t actually need the position,” Ms. von Fürstenberg instructed the information company United Press Worldwide.
She stated she started to bitter on performing after her scene in Franco Zeffirelli’s epic on St. Francis of Assisi, “Brother Solar, Sister Moon” (1972), was lower. Her final film credit score was in 1982.
Within the Nineties, she started to craft enigmatic artworks she referred to as “objets uniques” equivalent to a porphyry cranium in a golden laurel crown or figures of golden mice dancing on obelisks. A few of her work was featured in exhibitions world wide.
Whereas Rome turned her principal base, she moved typically between residences in London, Madrid, on Lake Geneva and Paris, the place her tub had strong gold faucets. But her tastes additionally may run very extraordinary. “In my fridge,” she as soon as stated, “you’ll at all times discover Coke Zero and Emmental cheese.”
Survivors embrace a son, Hubertus von Hohenlohe, a photographer and musician who represented Mexico as a skier in six Olympics. Her son Christoph Victorio Egon Humberto died in 2006 in a Thai jail after being charged with illegally altering his visa. He reportedly was combating well being issues following a rigorous weight-loss program in Thailand.
At a 2019 London e-book signing for the biography “Ira: The Life and Occasions of a Princess” by Nicholas Foulkes, a Vogue journalist tried to immediate some tales from Ms. von Fürstenberg by mentioning a number of distinguished designers, artists, administrators and different celebrities for the reason that Sixties.
Ms. von Fürstenberg indicated that there wasn’t sufficient time on the e-book occasion to begin reminiscing. “I knew all of them,” she stated.
