Vera Wang - Quotes

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. ---->>>

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

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. ---->>>

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

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

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

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

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. ---->>>

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

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. ---->>>

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

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

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. ---->>>

All I did my first year at Vogue was Xerox. ---->>>

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

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

My mother is the reason I'm in fashion. She worshiped it. Unfortunately, she infected 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. ---->>>

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. ---->>>

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. ---->>>

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 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. ---->>>

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. ---->>>

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 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. ---->>>

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. ---->>>

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

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

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

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 adore the challenge of creating truly modern clothes, where a woman's personality and sense of self are revealed. I want people to see the dress, but focus on the woman. ---->>>

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

I see myself as an arbiter of taste. ---->>>

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

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

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

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. ---->>>

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. ---->>>

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. ---->>>

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. ---->>>

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. ---->>>

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. ---->>>

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. ---->>>

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. ---->>>

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

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. ---->>>

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. ---->>>

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 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 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 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. ---->>>

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. ---->>>

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. ---->>>