VERA WANG

Vera Wang, with her combination of wide knowledge and experience; along with her passion for fashion, is the hottest yet elegant designer in the wedding world. Not only has she made the wedding gown industry her empire, but she’s also now all over the place with her classy and fresh clothing line, perfume, book and eyewear.

Wang was created for fashion; she was born into glamour and clothes. Since very young Wang would go shopping with her mother for high couture clothing; which didn’t take time to leave a mark in Wang. “It is horrible to say, but I was stigmatized by being a bridal designer for a long time,” says Wang, “I am amazed I have been able to move beyond it. I had really all but given up trying, but I did it because it was my lifelong dream.”

Believe it or not Wang’s first love weren’t wedding gowns, it was figure skating. At age seven her parents gave her a pair of ice skates for Christmas, she soon started practicing and later on competing professionally and with passion. “When I was young I thought nothing of waking up at four in the morning and rushing to the rink just to have 10 minutes longer on the ice than my competitors. I had to sacrifice things, like a social life, to be a skater at 15. But I loved skating so much that it was worth everything to me.” Let’s thank the Lord for ice skating; because without this passion of Wang’s she wouldn’t be the great classy designer she is; at age 8 Wang would already be sketching dresses to skate, not only was she involved in the technique, the choreography and the music, but she was pretty interested in what was it that she would be wearing. Clearly ice skating left something in Wang, since she says that she designs gowns in which the brides can dance comfortably in.

“Go work for somebody and get paid to learn. It’s tempting to think you can go off and do your own thing, but there is so much to learn in ways you’d never know”, advises Wang. Of course Wang didn’t start out from nowhere; after all during working experience she was exposed to more clothes than most people are all their lifetime. “When I quit skating I asked myself, ‘What is the thing that I can do that so totally fulfills me the way skating did?’” said Wang, “and the only other thing was fashion. I didn't have anything else that I loved as much as clothes”.

After her hard choice Wang moved on and landed nothing less than a job at Vogue, her first year Wang, in her own words, “did nothing but Xerox”, but soon enough she became the youngest editor in Vogue at age 23. “To be a fashion editor at Vogue, which is about the highest you can attain in fashion magazine-land, there's nothing you haven't been exposed to, no conditions under which you haven't worked, and you had to produce. You might be doing swimwear in January, or furs in July, with the makeup running and the hair limp and damp because the girl is sweating, but you have two days to do six of the biggest fur advertisers, and if you don't come home with extraordinary pictures, you're in deep trouble. And if your pictures aren't good over a period of time, you're in jeopardy for your job.” After 16 years in Vogue Wang landed in a calmer place where she was able to work at a slower pace, the place which was the land of Ralph Lauren where she was the accessories design director. Then Wang met her now husband, Arthur Becker, and after some time started talking wedding; that’s when the whole thing started out.

“When I decided to get married at 40 I couldn't find a dress worth the modernity or sophistication I wanted. That's when I saw the opportunity for a wedding gown business.” As you probably guessed Wang designed her own dress and the rest is history.

Wang has a gift, she’ll take whatever and give it her own twist; she can take a simple wedding gown and turn it classy by going outside the box and giving it her personal touch which consists on making the woman feel sexy yet comfortable. But where does her secret rely? “I see myself as a true modernist. Even when I do a traditional gown, I give it a modern twist. I go to the past for research. I need to know what came before so I can break the rules” says Wang.

There’s no doubt that Wang’s different than all other designers out there; I mean she’s got her Chinese self mixed with her American ways and she has respect for women; “I am a feminist” says Wang, “when I stop and think about it, there's no other way I can label myself. I am for women. I think some of the greatest designers have been men, but I think there are some for whom women are abstract. It's a design concept. Or it's some kind of fantasy or joke on women. Either way, it's not based on a real understanding of women and women's needs. I respect other women, and my clothes show it. I'm not making fun of them or trying to degrade them or make them feel silly. I'm trying, if anything, to make them be at their very best.”

Without a doubt Wang portrays a great role model as a woman; she’s a mother, a feminist, successful at her job and a wife and it’s great to have a designer out in the world that actually cares about all of us women.