Vera Wang
I do think I know more about clothes than any 500 designers, because there's nothing like wearing them. You buy them, you study them, and you start to understand how they're crafted.
Fashion to me has become very disposable; I wanted to get back to craft, to clothes that could last.
Just because you're from a city ten miles outside of St. Paul. It doesn't mean you don't read magazines, or the incredible Internet, and what's going on in the world. I never, ever take a client, or women, for granted.
I'm only waiting for Lindsay Lohan's fashion collection to come out. Ten years from now, there may be no real designers left.
It is horrible to say, but I was stigmatized by being a bridal designer for a long time. 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.
It's hard to juggle being a businessperson with being a creative person. You have to organize yourself - PR needs me for PR, and the licensing division needs me for licensing, the bridal people need me for bridal.
I hate phones. All businesses are personal businesses, and I always try my best to get back to people, but sometimes the barrage of calls is so enormous that if I just answered calls I would do nothing else.
Brides today are increasingly sensitive to the tastes, feelings and finances of their attendants.
I make things of my own that aren't that glam, but I'm not known for that, which has always been a bit of a frustration for me.
Success isn't about the end result; it's about what you learn along the way.Collection: Motivational
In the end, it’s not about failure, it’s about how much you love what you do.Collection: Ends
I want people to see the dress, but focus on the woman.Collection: Fashion
I never thought I'd be successful. It seems in my own mind that in everything I've undertaken I've never quite made the mark. But I've always been able to put disappointments aside. Success isn't about the end result; it's about what you learn along the way.Collection: Disappointment
When you love something, every day goes by in 10 minutes.Collection: Minutes
I think fashion is intensely personal. It should be. It should give a woman a creative outlet, it should give her a little bit of an escape, and it should give her a little bit of individuality that she can add to her life. I don't mean redoing your entire closet. I mean that a great shoe or a great handbag or a great top or a great coat or jacket can change everything.Collection: Fashion
Every woman hates her own body. I don't know a woman who doesn't . . . well, I do know a few who love themselves but in the case of most women it's like, "ugh." And when I dress a woman, my design intention is to give them an attitude or a grace, no matter whether it's a wedding gown or ready-to-wear.Collection: Attitude
A bride should look at everything she possibly can...just so she can experiment and see what makes her really feel beautiful or glamorous or classical or whatever she desires to be on that particular day.Collection: Beautiful
Whether you are a skater or a dancer, without sounding narcissistic, it is all about looking in the mirror. Where I used to practice in New York City, there was a mirror so you could actually watch yourself skate. And nowadays my golf teacher will film me swinging so I can see what I am doing. Having looked first at myself and my own body for so long as one does as a dancer and a skater, it was so natural to do fashion.Collection: Teacher
One thing about skating that I don't think people focus on enough is the music factor. The music is a huge component of figure skating. It can dictate not only the choreography but the emotion. If it's not the right music it can ruin a performance.Collection: Thinking
In terms of bridal dress, I've tried everything. I've tried short, long, deconstructed, constructed, bustiers, working in fabrics, working in color. I've been working in color in bridal for probably 15 years. Who else would do an entire collection dipped in tea? I did that one year. My design team dipped every single dress in tea in a bathtub. I did that just because I wanted to work out of the vocabulary of white.Collection: Team
It's kind of hard when your moniker is "bridal" and "evening" for people to understand that I don't run around in a bridal gown all day, nor do I run around in an evening gown. I run around in clothes that resonate for me. I wanted to do those clothes in my ready-to-wear collection - because I don't know how you can be a woman designing for other women and not relate it back to yourself.Collection: Running
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. 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: Attitude
People get very trapped where they are. When they hear "fashion" they get intimidated, particularly at the upper end because it's so elitist. If you can bring your own concept or your viewpoint and translate it not down but out, then you're really successful in the truest sense.Collection: Fashion
Service is a prerequisite for anything relating to luxury. That makes it (shopping) sensual and pleasurable.Collection: Shopping
I used to get tons of letters that said, "I'll never get to wear you," or "I'll never get married in one of your dresses," or "I'll never have an evening gown like the one I saw on the red carpet." I thought that was sad, because you give your life to this and you end up reaching very few people. So that was a major goal for me - to be able to reach and encourage more women, to encourage them to express themselves and be what they want to be.Collection: People
It's important to view fashion as personal and creative - even for brides. When brides ask me, "What's the best advice you can give me on my wedding day?" I always have the same answer: "Be yourself." Someone's marrying you, they love you for who you are, and they don't want you to be someone else, they want you to be who you are. If you never wear blue eye shadow, why would you put it on on your wedding day? If you wear your hair simply, why would you suddenly dye it a different color and get a big 'do? To me it's about respect and self-understanding and honesty.Collection: Fashion
I was struggling to find a way to make evening clothes more deconstructed. I like to think that I translated the Latin concept in a more modern way. I don't think that I was that literal.Collection: Latin
Ready-to-wear is what I've wanted to do since the beginning. ... I'm not a girl who spends my life in a ballgownCollection: Girl
Certainly a big challenge for me with evening-wear is to make it look modern and artistic and avant-garde. The very concept of a ball gown is not in itself a modern concept, and women need to wear that for a certain presence in Hollywood. I'm also aware that a starlet might go to more than one place that night so the piece could also offer, maybe not a revolution, but an evolution.Collection: Night
Bridal is always about who you are as a person and as a woman and as a lover and as a mate. People always ask me how a woman can pick just one dress. And the funny thing is they always know.Collection: People
The way a dancer can bring the crowd to its feet with a drawn-out, well-executed pirouette is the excitement I wanted to capture with this design.Collection: Feet
I brought color to bridal. There was one whole season of blush. If you think about the bareness, the illusion (fabric), the corsets that I did in bridal, they were trends in ready-to-wear, too.Collection: Thinking
When brides ask me, "What's the best advice you can give me on my wedding day?" I always have the same answer: "Be yourself." Someone's marrying you, they love you for who you are, and they don't want you to be someone else.Collection: Being Yourself
I love the focus and bravery of European designers, but I love the nonchalance and throwaway aspect of America that has made Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein two of the greatest icons. I try to bridge those two worlds in my work. The clothes may be couture on the runway but there's an attitude that's very street and that comes from America.Collection: Attitude
In the dream world of Matisse and the gritty reality of American frontier, the diversity of women in our society offers the chance for greater exploration and even greater inspiration.Collection: Dream
We got a lot of letters of people who didn't like them, like my own family who thought they were unnecessary and unpleasant and taking advantage of women in a sad situation - I never saw that. And I think that sometimes, you have to take a risk.Collection: Thinking
I wanted to breathe new life into the timeless trend of past, present and future. These unique designs celebrate the bride and groom's passage through their new life together.Collection: Unique
Is she going to, or has she done it? Has it happened? What is the story here?Collection: Stories
The intricate engraving, fine lines, beading and milgrain accents echo an era defined by elaborate embellishments.Collection: Echoes
I was stigmatized by being a bridal designer for a long time. 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.Collection: Dream
I think there's going to be a real push in the next two years in Asia - China and Korea specifically. And that's a huge undertaking. Ten years ago it was impossible to break into that part of the world. Some of the biggest companies in the world found it challenging. But I am Chinese-American and I think what we do will resonate in China. So that's where we see our biggest opportunities going forward. I do speak Mandarin and I also relate to the hunger that China has for culture and architecture and style.Collection: Real
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: Book
I’m only waiting for Lindsay Lohan’s fashion collection to come out. Ten years from now, there may be no real designers left.Collection: Real