Working World

Jennifer Lopez, Sharon Stone and Mariah Carey all wore her gowns when they were married, and her creations have been featured in movies such as Sex and the City and Bride Wars. One of the best-known designers of wedding fashion in the world, Vera Wang is keenly aware of the responsibility she has to all her bridal customers — famous or not — to make a dress that lives up to their fantasy, one they might have had since they were children.

The daughter of well-to-do Chinese immigrants, Wang grew up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. She was exposed to fashion at an early age and says she and her mother were two of Yves Saint Laurent’s “best clients.” In fact, her first job was at an YSL boutique. She has a degree in art history from Sarah Lawrence College and studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. At age 23, she became the youngest fashion editor Vogue has ever had, and she stayed there for 16 years. Eventually she realized she wanted to design as well as be involved in fashion styling and photography, so she moved to Ralph Lauren in 1985 where she was design director for women’s accessories.

Wang worked in the fashion industry for 21 years before launching her own company in 1990. Her drive to create wedding gowns came from the frustration of her own experience as a bride-to-be. When she married businessman Arthur Becker in 1989 at the age of 40, Wang wanted a dress that was sophisticated and modern, not the frilly, frou-frou styles popular at the time. And she knew that, with her fashion experience, she could offer “tremendous alternatives and a taste level that probably didn’t exist before.”

Since launching her company, Wang has had to manage the business side while juggling the creative aspects of designing. Her days at the office often involve putting out the fires of dissatisfied clients, business negotiations and personnel matters. The conceptual/design process she often thinks through in her evenings at home. She told Fortune International, “My bedroom is my sanctuary. It’s like a refuge…I’m able to think in a more peaceful way.”

Over the past few years, her company has begun producing designer lines in ready-to-wear clothing, fine jewelry, eyewear, fragrances, handbags, shoes and high-end home furnishings. Her brands became even more accessible in 2007 with a licensing agreement with Kohl’s Department Stores. Now middle-income customers can get their hands on Wang sportswear, intimate apparel, accessories and linens.    

Wang also designed the Philadelphia Eagles cheerleader uniform, as well as costumes for figure skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Michelle Kwan. (Wang herself trained as a figure skater in high school and competed in the 1968 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.)

In 2005, she received the Womenswear Designer of the Year Award — the American fashion industry’s highest honor — from the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

Wang and her husband, the CEO of an information technology company, live in New York City with their two teenage daughters.   

Suzanne Ridgway is a freelance writer and regular columnist for Working World and Working Nurse magazines. She also writes grant proposals for nonprofit organizations.

1 COMMENTS

• Catherine Rhodes

  This is a very interesting story about a "late bloomer" who came to her career and calling as a wedding dress designer after the age of 40.

  Mar 14, 2010