Racy past of stars' favourite fashion designer revealed

Designer Diane von Furstenburg's racy past has been revealed. Photo / Getty Images

She rose to fame with her signature wrap dress, and counts the Duchess of Cambridge and Michelle Obama among her fans.

But Diane von Furstenberg has lived a life of wild excess far removed from the refined elegance of her designs, according to a new biography.

Once known as Her Serene Highness Princess Diane von Furstenberg following her marriage to a German prince, the 68-year-old designer is an international philanthropist with an estimated fortune of £291million (NZ$666m).

But during her younger days she slept with both men and women by the score, seeing "every evening and weekend as an opportunity for sex", according to her biographer.

Whether it was group erotic encounters with her husband or the exhibitionist thrill she got from exposing her breasts in public, von Furstenberg's fashion success went hand in hand with sexual excess, claims the book Diane von Furstenberg: A Life Unwrapped. The designer gave author Gioia Diliberto access to her family and friends, reassuring her that "I have no secrets".

Von Furstenberg's mother was an Auschwitz survivor who gave birth to her daughter in Belgium, just 18 months after being freed. At 15, she was sent to a girls' boarding school, Stroud Court in Oxfordshire, in order to improve her English.

She lost her virginity in her first year there to an Iranian boy named Sohrab who was studying architecture at Oxford, the book claims. She also had a lesbian affair - the first of many - with a school friend named Deanna.

"She was very shy and masculine, and she intrigued me," said von Furstenberg. "I was in love." On a Christmas ski trip to Switzerland after she had left school, she had an affair with a wealthy Venezuelan businessman who gave her her first designer outfit.

"Over the years, Diane would sleep with many men ... and fall in love with a few of them," writes Diliberto. "The power of her style would derive from the heat of sex flowing through it." At a party aged 19, she met a blond young man from an aristocratic German family who would become her first husband - Prince Egon of Furstenberg. They married in 1969.

The designer knew her husband was bisexual and accepted it without a blink, the biography says. They lived together in New York as she tried to build a career in fashion, and had two children.

There, the prince "led a separate life in the city's gay bath houses and backroom bars" - while his wife indulged in her own affairs. The book claims the couple also had "group sex sessions" at their home in Sardinia.

Von Furstenberg liked to expose her breasts in revealing outfits, says Diliberto, and she occasionally posed topless for magazines.

After her first marriage ended in 1972, she met Paramount Pictures mogul Barry Diller two years later. The pair eventually married in 2001.

She remained a regular at gay bars in Manhattan, where she would sometimes go dressed as a man. On her sexuality, von Furstenberg simply says: "Have I slept with women? Yes. But I'm definitely not a lesbian."

- Daily Mail