That product was the wrap dress, a simple stretch of jersey fabric that ties around the waist.

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When a wrap dress was getting just one sale a week, she insisted it be put on a popular model.

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Fashion icon and queen of the wrap dress Diane von Furstenberg just unveiled her most recent hotel project in Australia.

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Diane von Furstenberg is renowned for her iconic wrap dress and signature prints for the ever-sassy career woman -- embodying the DVF label.

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"I mean the wrap dress is a tiny part of what I do, but yet, it will always be part of what I do, " Von Furstenberg said.

CNN: From wrap dress to riches

She's resigned to the fact that she'll always be regarded first and the foremost as the designer of the wrap dress, despite the varied nature of her collections.

CNN: From wrap dress to riches

Wearing a splendid pair of high heels and a black wrap dress with cuts and slashes entwined with what looked to an untutored eye to be medical bandages, Dame Vivienne found the large, soft-looking armchair too hard and uncomfortable.

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The look on his face when I recently debuted a shrink-wrap tight dress told me so.

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Top designers certainly tapped into them, too, with Gareth Pugh's dress that uses bits of garbage bags for a featherlike effect, John Galliano's Christian Dior newsprint dress and the bubble-wrap looks from Alexander McQueen's 2006 Rubbish Collection.

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