My evening really begins when I take a long, hot bath. I light a candle, and I turn on the news and try to catch up. It's when I can breathe from the day to the night, and that means a lot to me.
— Vera Wang
I'm a late riser by my family's standards. Sleeping is a luxury because since I was young, I woke up very early to go ice-skating. So I'm really not a morning girl.
I was an art history major, but never specifically contemporary. I would say where I really stopped were the abstract expressionists in the New York school.
My mother is the reason I'm in fashion. She worshiped it. Unfortunately, she infected me.
Success isn't about the end result, it's about what you learn along the way.
I do speak Mandarin, and I also relate to the hunger that China has for culture and architecture and style.
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.
I am not the sort of woman who would wear high heels with a bathing suit. Let's get that straight right now.
My normal routine is pretty much putting out fires all day.
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'm only waiting for Lindsay Lohan's fashion collection to come out. Ten years from now, there may be no real designers left.
Fashion to me has become very disposable; I wanted to get back to craft, to clothes that could last.
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.
I'm not really a girl who likes to go out to lunch or cocktails or store openings.
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!
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.
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.
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.
I love sportswear in my own weird way. Fashion is such a personal journey for me. I'm much more of a girl that's a T-shirt, legging, layering kind of thing, and outerwear.
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.
I was a total fashion insider who became an outsider when I did bridal.
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.
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. People get very trapped where they are.
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.
Brides today are increasingly sensitive to the tastes, feelings and finances of their attendants.
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.
They never ask the celebrities why they don't wear their own clothes on the red carpet.
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.
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.
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.
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.
When you have a passion for something then you tend not only to be better at it, but you work harder at it too.
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.
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.
I wear Rick Owens T-shirts to bed. They are like my thermals, since I sleep with the room at near freezing temperatures, like a meat locker.
I've always tried to push myself technically and to push myself visually. That's been part of the journey.
I love to design things that people can actually buy. I'm staggered by what a boot costs today.
All I did my first year at Vogue was Xerox.
Figure skating has been a great influence for me. I took dance at the School of American Ballet, which helped my own skating. And whether you are a skater or a dancer, without sounding narcissistic, it is all about looking in the mirror.
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.
I love a black wedding dress.
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.
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.
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.
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 see myself as an arbiter of taste.
I like the gritty parts of fashion, the design, the studio, the pictures.
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 key is falling in love with something, anything. If your heart's attached to it, then your mind will be attached to it.
People get very trapped where they are. When they hear 'fashion' they get intimidated, particularly at the upper end because it's so elitist.
