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.

Vera Wang

Categorized in : Me Past People Forget

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.

fashion dream moving

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.

inspiration dream reality

Brides today are increasingly sensitive to the tastes, feelings a... by Vera Wang

Brides today are increasingly sensitive to the tastes, feelings and finances of their attendants.

taste feelings today

It's a remarkable exercise to sit and look at your own work over... by Vera Wang

It's a remarkable exercise to sit and look at your own work over the years.

exercise looks years

It's hard to balance everything. It's always challenging. by Vera Wang

It's hard to balance everything. It's always challenging.

hard balance challenges

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.

important athlete years

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.

glam my-own frustration

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.

frustrated design years

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.

gowns design dresses

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.

phones hate people

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.

bedroom design sanctuary

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.

design cost people

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.

fabric color thinking

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.

creative people needs

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.

wedding creativity book

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.

magazines cities mean

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.

years moving thinking

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.

breathing fashion girl

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.

focus people thinking

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.

fashion golf teacher