Of course, things have more or less always been that way, but since transferring creative control of her empire, a bout of philanthropic work now holds most of her attention. "I pulled away from my company because I wanted to focus on my work with and commitment to women," she starts. A week prior, von Furstenberg spoke to 12,000 of them at the Massachusetts Women's Conference in Boston. "I love to do that. To age is to be able to use your voice for people who have no voice. And that’s what I want to do." (Aging is not a topic von Furstenberg shies away from, though asking her about it has become a bit of a cliché. When probed on how her relationship with women has changed over the years, she replied simply: "I was a young woman, and now I'm an old woman.”)