What to Watch: DVF’s Goals for 2018: Selling a Stake and Hiring New Creative Chief

Diane von Furstenberg has entered a new year that could bring lots of changes to her contemporary sportswear business. Last month, DVF revealed she was interested in selling all or part of her company and a week later that her chief creative officer Jonathan Saunders had resigned. All this is on top of the fact that her business has been without a chief executive officer for more than a year. Von Furstenberg said of looking for a potential investor that “2018 will be the year in which we will be able to attract the best expertise and leadership to protect the legacy of the brand and make sure DVF is relevant in this disruptive moment of the industry.” The designer revealed she would hire Michel Dyens & Co., a leading independent investment banking firm, headquartered in New York and Paris, which focuses on mergers and acquisitions, to sell a stake in the business. Dyens has extensive experience leading transactions in luxury goods, beauty, spirits and other premium brand consumer goods. In fact, Dyens worked with DVF some 35 years ago when she sold her cosmetics company to British pharmaceutical giant Beecham Group Ltd. in 1983. “My goal in the next phase of my life

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