Vera wang quotes

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.

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.

I am not the sort of woman who would wear high heels with a bathing suit. Let's get that straight right now.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

When you have a passion for something then you tend not only to be better at it, but you work harder at it too.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I've always tried to push myself technically and to push myself visually. That's been part of the journey.

I don't live through my kids. But I do know what will happen in life, and I just want them well prepared.

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.

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.

I do speak Mandarin, and I also relate to the hunger that China has for culture and architecture and style.

Ready-to-wear is what I've wanted to do since the beginning. ... I'm not a girl who spends my life in a ballgown

My mother was extremely controlled, sort of flawless. And I always tend to be a bit more hippie.

A woman is never sexier than when she is comfortable in her clothes.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

In the end, it’s not about failure, it’s about how much you love what you do.

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.

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.

People get very trapped where they are. When they hear 'fashion' they get intimidated, particularly at the upper end because it's so elitist.

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.

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.

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 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 see myself as an arbiter of taste.

I like the gritty parts of fashion, the design, the studio, the pictures.

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.

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.

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.

I love a black wedding dress.

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.

I'm only waiting for Lindsay Lohan's fashion collection to come out. Ten years from now, there may be no real designers left.

I want people to see the dress, but focus on the woman.

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.

They never ask the celebrities why they don't wear their own clothes on the red carpet.

Is she going to, or has she done it? Has it happened? What is the story here?

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.

The key is falling in love with something, anything. If your heart's attached to it, then your mind will be attached to it.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'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.

All I did my first year at Vogue was Xerox.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As the mother of two daughters, I have great respect for women. And I don't ever want to lose that.

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.

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.

My normal routine is pretty much putting out fires all day.

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.

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.

Service is a prerequisite for anything relating to luxury. That makes it (shopping) sensual and pleasurable.

Fashion to me has become very disposable; I wanted to get back to craft, to clothes that could last.

The intricate engraving, fine lines, beading and milgrain accents echo an era defined by elaborate embellishments.

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.

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.

When you love something, every day goes by in 10 minutes.

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.

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.

Fashion offers no greater challenge than finding what works for night without looking like you are wearing a costume.

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

Success isn't about the end result; it's about what you learn along the way.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I'm not really a girl who likes to go out to lunch or cocktails or store openings.

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.

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.

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.

I was a total fashion insider who became an outsider when I did bridal.