Egon and Diane von und zu Furstenberg are a contemporary version of the American Dream.
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They take us beyond run-of-the-mill excess as they explore the opportunities of open marriage.
Nor even, getting closer to home, of Tricia Nixon and Fast Eddie Cox.
They make last years best-beloveds, Carter and Amanda, look like a pair of knock-kneed cheerleaders.
But they have their moments, the Von Furstenbergs do.
She designs womens wear.
The caftans are based, rather closely, on what several million Arabs have worn for years.
We live in today, which is why I left Europe to bring up my children here.
It is important to belong to your time.
I have to be independent, Diane feels.
It is an extremely difficult situation between men and women now.
A woman doesnt need a man anymore, but she pretends she needs his protection.
Men are the big losers.
They dont know how to handle the new woman.
But then, the new woman doesnt know how she wants to be handled.
We are each others family, explains Diane.
He is my best friend and I am his.
There is nothing of him I dont know.
And besides, we dont take anything very seriously.
The only way for a relationship to survive, I think, is to have no sex at all.
After all, you marry for friendship, for companionship and passion after a while … pfffft.
I mean, does it excite you when your left hand touches your right?
I looked at one girl for a year, and finally I met her.
I was very gay and had 150 ideas, he says of his days on Wall Street.
I never was a good analyst.
I had too much joy of living to be down there.
It is her passion.
Id rather work than do anything at home, she says.
I hate to cook, hate to do housework.
It is totally ungratifying.
Ambition flares in her eyes.
Im going to stay in business until my picture is on the cover ofFortune.
I feel a great urge to hurry to do everything.
Im more secure than she is, Egon says.
She relies only on herself and looks to protect herself.
She worries … Oh, she worries … death worries her terribly.
The pressure is intense, she feels.
Woman are becoming too beautiful, too strong.
But theres no other way to be.
What do you want me to do?
Go out to lunch?
What would it bring me?
But now its beginning to hurt.
And I dont like to hurt.
At least Ill know who to intensify with.
Egons father, Prince Tassilo, visited them from his home in Vienna for Christmas.
This is the first time in nine centuries that we have Jewish blood.
he says, referring to Diane, whose Belgian mother and Russian father are Jewish.
But Jews are clever and shrewd and the little boy will need that.
He shook his head.
I came to their wedding but not to the reception.
Eddie [Egon] understood.
He sent a girl to my room.
Although they were born here, the children baby-talk in Italian, the language of their nanny.
And upstairs, the housekeeper is dealt with in Spanish.
Alexandre is being eased into English now in afternoon classes at the International Play Group.
The nanny disapproves, however, so Diane must go uptown every day to take him to school.
Anything Goes
Egon is not in the least self-conscious.
You just live once, he says, and I am getting the most out of it.
After a while, passionyou knowcools.
So a little here, a little there at three in the afternoon.
Egon admits that were he to meet an attractive man, he would not be loath to experiment.
But Diane is not so sure.
Homosexuality is a kind of narcissism, she says.
Its like making love in front of a mirror.
Its a big bore.
Butch dykes upset me.
A pretty, attractive woman?
Once in Paris we tried it with another woman, Egon said.
There were three of us.
But you know what?
It was just twice as much work for me.
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