Vera Wang
Design is about point of view, and there should be some sort of woman or lifestyle or attitude in one's head as a designer.Collection: Design
Design is about point of view, and there should be some sort of woman or lifestyle or attitude in one's head as a designer. So my being able to reach the masses was something that meant a great deal to me - especially for women who could never wear Vera Wang.Collection: Design
My closet is organized by tops, pants, and outerwear, but not a lot of dresses. Gowns are in another room because I don't often dress formally, even though I design gowns. Like most designers, I have a uniform, and mine is a legging.Collection: Design
When I design a wedding dress with a bustle, it has to be one the bride can dance in. I love the idea that something is practical and still looks great.Collection: Wedding
When I decided to get married at 40, I couldn't find a dress with the modernity or sophistication I wanted. That's when I saw the opportunity for a wedding gown business.Collection: Wedding
I do speak Mandarin, and I also relate to the hunger that China has for culture and architecture and style.Collection: Architecture
I love a black wedding dress.Collection: Wedding
I always see where I didn't do things the right way. I only see the heavy lifting. That's a bit of my wisdom, if you want to call it that.Collection: Wisdom
I wanted to define the vocabulary of a wedding both visually and intellectually. The book is about more than weddings or wedding dresses. It's a metaphor for women's lives, their creativity.Collection: Wedding
There was no relationship between a wedding dress and fashion. There was no good taste, either. I realized that I could make an impression in terms of changing and readdressing the whole industry of bridal.Collection: Wedding
As the mother of two daughters, I have great respect for women. And I don't ever want to lose that.Collection: Respect
All those years of skating and dancing have carried over. I can't design anything without thinking of how a woman's body will look and move when she's wearing it.Collection: Design
I love to design things that people can actually buy. I'm staggered by what a boot costs today.Collection: Design
Don't be afraid to take time to learn. It's good to work for other people. I worked for others for 20 years. They paid me to learn.Collection: Work
Success isn't about the end result, it's about what you learn along the way.Collection: Success
Let's be realistic, how many people are buying a $2,000 skirt? I love to design things that people can actually buy. I'm staggered by what a boot costs today.Collection: Design
Even the most understated ceremony involves a certain respect for ritual and pageantry. No one plays more of a significant role than the bride's attendants.Collection: Respect
I like the gritty parts of fashion, the design, the studio, the pictures.Collection: Design
A woman is never sexier than when she is comfortable in her clothes.
The key is falling in love with something, anything. If your heart's attached to it, then your mind will be attached to it.
My bedroom is my sanctuary. It's like a refuge, and it's where I do a fair amount of designing - at least conceptually, if not literally.
I see myself as an arbiter of taste.
If I were to say at any point that I feel really confident or really in control, that would be a mistake. Because I don't. I always see where I didn't do things the right way.
When you have a passion for something then you tend not only to be better at it, but you work harder at it too.
They never ask the celebrities why they don't wear their own clothes on the red carpet.
I adore the challenge of creating truly modern clothes, where a woman's personality and sense of self are revealed. I want people to see the dress, but focus on the woman.
It's hard to balance everything. It's always challenging.
To me, eyewear goes way beyond being a prescription. It's like makeup. It's the most incredible accessory. The shape of a frame or the color of lenses can change your whole appearance.
I am not the sort of woman who would wear high heels with a bathing suit. Let's get that straight right now.
I was a total fashion insider who became an outsider when I did bridal.
Things that came before, people and things and experiences - that does mean something to me. It doesn't mean I don't embrace the new, but I don't forget the past, either.
My normal routine is pretty much putting out fires all day.
I was the girl who nobody thought would ever get married. I was going to be a fashion nun the rest of my life. There are generations of them, those fashion nuns, living, eating, breathing clothes.
All I did my first year at Vogue was Xerox.
I was trying to manage school and training for the Olympics and ended up not doing well at either. That was a big lesson in my life. My mother expected both.
Fashion offers no greater challenge than finding what works for night without looking like you are wearing a costume.
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.
I work with structure, but I go outside the box and give it my own spin. I adore the challenge of creating truly modern clothes - where a woman's personality and sense of style are realized.
I've been designing since I was 8. I started sketching dresses I could wear when skating. I was always involved in all aspects of skating, not just the technique, the choreography, the music, but the visual aspects, too - what I should wear.
It's a remarkable exercise to sit and look at your own work over the years.
It's for all the women who embrace my aesthetic, but can't afford a Vera Wang dress. If women can get anything out of it - a little bit of me or a lot of me, that's what's important.
My mother was extremely controlled, sort of flawless. And I always tend to be a bit more hippie.
I don't live through my kids. But I do know what will happen in life, and I just want them well prepared.
I started at the very highest level so the upper end is something I know very well. I know it instinctively. But all the years I was designing, it frustrated me that I could reach so few women.
People get very trapped where they are. When they hear 'fashion' they get intimidated, particularly at the upper end because it's so elitist.
It takes tremendous will to compete in any athletic endeavor, so it meant going to bed early and getting my homework done in advance. 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.
Although in skating you compete with other people, anyone who achieves a certain level of success is first and foremost competing against themselves. And for me the idea that I could always do better, learn more, learn faster, is something that came from skating. But I carried that with me for the rest of my life.
The funny thing is that I'm the girl who no one sees at the beach. Ask anyone who's traveled with me. Normally, I'm in so many layers, I look like Lawrence of Arabia!
New York for me is about work. If L.A. were to become a West Coast version of that, I'd shoot myself. The climate, the lifestyle - it really fits as the yin to my New York yang.
The great thing about having a pool in L.A. is that I can use it year-round. And since I've always been an athlete, staying fit is very important.