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.
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.
I do speak Mandarin, and I also relate to the hunger that China has for culture and architecture and style.
I am not the sort of woman who would wear high heels with a bathing suit. Let’s get that straight right now.
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.
Fashion to me has become very disposable; I wanted to get back to craft, to clothes that could last.
All I did my first year at Vogue was Xerox.
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.
People get very trapped where they are. When they hear ‘fashion’ they get intimidated, particularly at the upper end because it’s so elitist.
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.
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’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 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.
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.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
They never ask the celebrities why they don’t wear their own clothes on the red carpet.
The key is falling in love with something, anything. If your heart’s attached to it, then your mind will be attached to it.