Venice, where Diane von Furstenberg now calls home, is a city that she describes as “a woman who is seductive, and offers solutions.” On Thursday evening, her beloved city—that problem-solving seductress—provided the setting for a gathering of women who tend to make things happen rather than wait for them to happen: the 17th edition of the DVF Awards.
But this year, the evening at the jewel-box Teatro Goldoni carried a deeper resonance. Following the news of Gloria Steinem’s death at 92 that same day, the celebration was dedicated to the trailblazing feminist who irrevocably changed the way the world thinks about women. (Steinem herself was honored with a DVF Award in 2014.)
The chance to honor her legacy made for a poignant coincidence for an evening devoted to female power, and a reminder that, however much has changed since Steinem first began shaking things up, there is still plenty to do. Steinem’s spirit and presence were felt in a room designed, in many ways, in her image. “Gloria was gorgeous”, recalled von Furstenberg. “She was glory, her name was literally Glory. She was a glory, and she gave glory to women. She definitely earned her name. She stayed forever young, eternally a student. And such a badass. She refused to be a victim.”
It’s a lineage von Furstenberg herself has carried forward since 2010, utilizing her own awards platform to spotlight women who don’t simply talk about change—but get on with enacting it. Together with the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation, the prize recognizes and support extraordinary women dedicated to transforming and inspiring the lives of other women, with each recipient granted $100,000 towards their nonprofit organization in order to further their work.
This year’s five honorees offered an expansive definition of what that can mean: actress and lifelong activist Jane Fonda; Gisèle Pelicot, the French survivor who turned a deeply personal ordeal into a public demand for justice; Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, who has become one of the Caribbean’s most outspoken voices on climate justice, debt, and global inequality since she was elected as the country’s first female leader in 2018; photojournalist Lynsey Addario, whose career has taken her into some of the world’s most dangerous places; and Kenyan educator and entrepreneur Wawira Njiru, whose Food4Education initiative provides school meals to children and has grown into one of Kenya’s largest school-feeding programs.
All five spoke with the charisma their honors demanded, but none more urgently than Addario—fresh off an assignment in Madagascar and already bracing for the West Bank in October—who touched on what she called journalism’s most precarious moment. “When I started photographing, my mantra was, ‘If I have a photo, it happened because I was there. Now you can’t even believe it if there is a photo,’” she said, reflecting on media’s credibility struggle in the age of AI and on the repeated attacks on freedom of speech. On the work itself, amid coverage of Ukraine, Sudan, and Gaza, she added: “I get a lot of strength from the people I photograph. They still have strength and they still have hope. I really believe that photos and relationships and communication can make a difference. Add that to empathy and compassion, and it’s my contribution; it’s where I can feel useful in a time where things seem very overwhelming.”
