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Join us as we explore the lives and times of some of history’s most prominent women of Asian and Asian American descent.
Vera Wang is a master of reinvention and the perfect subject for October’s episode of Ladies & Legends.
INTRO:
“Success isn’t about the end result, it’s about what you learn along the way,”
This is a quote from renowned designer Vera Wang, who has built her empire on an empowered vision of what it means to be an alluring, elegant, graceful, and multi-dimensional woman, particularly on one’s wedding day.
While she’s known for breaking barriers in the design world and making wedding dresses an exciting part of a new bride’s becoming, she also has an extensive background in fashion. She served as an editor for Vogue for 17-years (in fact when she came onboard after college, she was the youngest editor ever, at the magazine).
This multi-dimensional entrepreneur’s journey from young girl in New York, to household name status, and reinvention of herself in her 70’s as a social media goddess with nearly 1 million followers on Instagram, is one of love, passion, and above all, a deep belief in herself.
She’s also the master of pivoting when the writing is on the wall, even without a safety net, cementing her reputation for tenacity and resilience.
HOST:
“Hello welcome to Ladies and Legends, the podcast where we explore the personal journeys of legendary women and business leaders of Asian and Asian American descent. I’m your host Juyun, and today’s story is about household name to fashionistas everywhere – designer and fashion icon Vera Wang.
Whether you’re a fan of Kim K, Victoria Beckham, Alicia Keyes, Mariah Carey, Viola Davis, and even Michelle Obama, they all have 1 thing in common – Vera Wang’s designs.
She’s even traversed the world athletic stage outfitting renowned figure skaters at the Winter Olympic Games, like Nancy Kerrigan in 1992, and 1994, Michelle Kwan in 1998 and 2002, and Nathan Chen (2018 and 2022), among others.
And now, in her mid-70’s she’s still killing it on social media and in life and business with multiple fashion lines from the luxury, eponymous Vera Wang, to the more wallet friendly Simply Vera Vera Wang, to Black by Vera Wang, a line that carries jewelry as well as men’s wear. She’s also licensed her name to other ventures.
Fashion icon. Reluctant bride. Relentless entrepreneur. And above all—a woman who turned her ‘Plan B’ into a global empire.
Let’s get into it.
PART 1: Early Life & Identity
Vera Ellen Wang was born on June 27, 1949, in New York City to Chinese immigrant parents. But this isn’t the typical rags-to-riches story we hear so much about. On the contrary, Vera had a privileged childhood.
Her father who was an MIT graduate, owned a successful pharmaceutical company, while her mother who had a job as a translator for the UN, was a mom straight out of Gossip Girl, regularly shopping couture shows in Paris.
And in keeping with that stereotypical Gossip Girl life, and like Misa’s cotillion debut in last month’s Ladies & Legends interview, Vera too was presented as a debutante to high society at the International Debutante Ball at the Waldorf Astoria at the age of 19.
Through it all though, despite growing up on the Upper East Side and attending the elite Chapin School, and later Sarah Lawrence College where she studied Art History, Vera has always been more of a self-described “hippie,” style-wise.
She’s said of her mother in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, “my mother was extremely controlled, sort of flawless […] she was a Tiger Mother…but she really tried to encourage me to be who I was.”
When she was 8 years old, Vera began rising at dawn to take up figure skating under the tutelage of Peter Dunfield and Sonya Klopfer themselves both renowned competitive figure skaters. Her parents had hopes that their daughter would become a world famous athlete. They held onto this dream through her Sarah Lawence days and though she competed at the 1968 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, she failed to make the Olympics team, which lead to heartbreak.
She says:
“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.” (Harper’s Bazaar, 2011)
So here’s when the first pivot comes in Vera’s story: after failing to make the U.S. Olympic figure skating team, she didn’t collapse. She recalibrated. That setback—one that could’ve defined her—became a launchpad for something entirely different.
It should be noted here that Vera had one brother, Kenneth or Ken Wang who graduated with a degree in Economics from MIT and is the founder/owner of the Pete Dye-designed Pound Ridge Golf Club in New York. While one might say Vera leaned into the democratization of high-end bridal couture, her brother has similarly leaned in to the democratization of golf as a sport through this endeavor, otherwise little can be found about him publicly.
PART 2: Vogue Tenure and Pivot 2
Vera got a hit of another possibility that was open to her, through her college friendship with 60’s model and icon, Penelope Tree. They would drive back to campus together from the city, in Vera’s Porsche after Christmas vacation and Penelope would regale her friend with stories like being in London with renowned photographer David Bailey. It was in stark contrast to her own break spent ice skating in New Jersey.
“She wasn’t going to Harvard-Yale football games and shit like that,” Vera told Harper’s Bazaar in a 2011 interview.
When she graduated, she made up her mind to obsessively rise up the ranks of the cutthroat fashion world and at just 23 years old, and straight out of college, she was hired as the youngest Vogue editor, ever.
“I will never forget, it was so incredible” legendary Vogue Fashion Editor and Vera Wang’s first boss, Polly Allen Mellen has said about her, “she was dressed in a white crepe de chine Yves Saint Laurent dress, with long red fingernails and very beautiful, very high-heeled pumps. And I said to her, ‘Vera, we are going to be working in the fashion closet and, believe me, we’ll be on our hands and knees. So I think you should go home and change,’ (Harper’s Bazaar, 2011).
From the start, she was determined to succeed. Her former boss and friend also remembers her as “inspiring,” “caring,” and “never complaining,” “a pleasure,” to be around.
How focused was she? She recalled a time her father flew to Paris just to see her. And because she was in the middle of a photoshoot, at the Place de la Concorde, she had to turn down dinner with him.
So that obsessive quality served her well, for 17-years at Vogue. Ultimately though, she was passed over for the Editor-in-Chief position in favor of the also iconic Anna Wintour who was the same age as Vera at the time. She took it on the chin though and without complaining, left to join Ralph Lauren in another career pivot.
Perhaps it’s a good lesson for all us as we move upwards. It wouldn’t kill us to focus without being deterred, as long as we’re working towards a dream that serves us. But once the road becomes impossible, it may be a sign to pivot. Every path has hiccups that ultimately recede in rearview mirror of our life’s journey, but the question is always, how can we approach it all with grace and discipline like Vera, and know when it’s time to pivot?
Fun fact, she was originally set to work for Geoffrey Beene but the day before she was set to start, Ralph Lauren called, offering a salary 4 times what she would earn with Geoffrey Beene which was too good to pass up.
“So I went to Ralph Lauren through my connections to Vogue and became a design director for all of women’s (clothing) there. When I saw what it takes to build that kind of empire, if I had been sane, I probably would have stopped there.
But as fate would have it, after just two years at Ralph Lauren, she left to start her own design house.
PART 3: Pivot 3 – Starting Vera Wang
Vera once said: “I never thought I would be a designer.” But sometimes, entrepreneurship starts where frustration lives.
At age 40, Vera was planning her own wedding to investor and real estate developer Arthur P. Becker, and found herself completely underwhelmed by the bridal fashion choices available.
So what did she do? She did what all great entrepreneurs do: she built what she couldn’t find.
Let’s take a quick step back to catch up on her personal life.
Vera met Arthur in 1977 at a tennis match in Forest Hills, Queens. He was working for her father as a stockbroker. And on their first date, he arrived at the restaurant only to find that her entire family was there – Vera was very close to her family.
So when they were getting ready to wed in 1989, and she couldn’t find the right dress that suited her age, she was 39, and style, she decided to design her own for the hefty sum in those days, of $10,000.
In 1990, Vera opened a small bridal boutique in the Carlyle Hotel on Madison Avenue. Her first collection was funded in part by her father—who believed in her, and that her vision addressed a growing predicament for new brides, even if the industry didn’t yet. She took a huge risk, designing gowns that were modern, clean, and fashion-forward—defying the princess puff norms of the time.
She has said:
“There have been a million days where I said to myself, ‘What was I thinking?’ or ‘Why did I do this?’ But there have been way more days where I felt extremely lucky to be doing something that I love so much and learning new lessons as not only (as a) designer but as an entrepreneur.”
As a side note, while it’s not uncommon to get married in one’s 30’s and 40’s today, back in 1990 the median age women got married was 23.9 years old. You can imagine how much one’s tastes evolve in the decade interim and how clever Vera and her father were to recognize a growing opportunity, with a better-educated and more affluent subset of the population.
Here’s the truth: starting a business at 40, in a hyper-competitive and youth-obsessed industry like fashion, as an Asian American woman—was no cakewalk. And in the beginning it was her dad who was her biggest supporter while she struggled internally with questions like “am I too old to start this?”
And in the beginning, Vera faced skepticism. She wasn’t trained as a traditional designer. She wasn’t a household name. And her dresses were different. Understated, architectural, sleek. Critics didn’t get it—at first.
But she stayed the course. She stuck to her instincts. And slowly, brides paid attention. They could be, on their wedding day, who they wanted to be in life in Vera’s creations – elegant, classy, self-assured and quietly confident. Celebrities too. Her breakthrough came when Sharon Stone, Mariah Carey, and later, Victoria Beckham and Chelsea Clinton, all walked down the aisle in Vera’s designs.
And let’s be clear—this wasn’t a fluke. Vera’s edge was in her dual identity: East meets West. Art history meets business. Function meets flair. She brought subtlety into an industry obsessed with spectacle. And in doing so, she made space for modern women—especially Asian American women—to see themselves differently.
PART 4: Personal Life & Legacy
Back to 1989, Vera’s friends Ralph Lauren and Anna Wintour had always encouraged her to marry, though Vera herself had thought she would be a “fashion nun,” for the rest of her life.
“Anna said, ‘You have got to get a family going here. You’ve been single for three decades now.’ So I married my husband, there are days I’m not happy I did it, but there are days I’m thrilled.”
But had it not been for the trials and pressures of “saying yes to a dress,” Vera’s fashion empire may never came come to fruition. So perhaps her famous friends were on to something there.
Vera’s husband Arthur officially joined the company in 2010, 21-years after they married, though he had unofficially advised Wang on growing her label from bridal collections to the couture, since its inception.
But just two years later in 2012, they divorced.
There were rumors of an affair on her part, but these were never substantiated. Vera herself has described their relationship as one of opposites, as can be inferred from her comment that they were like the “original” When Harry Met Sally,” couple. But they continue to maintain a harmonious professional relationship.
During their marriage Vera and Arthur had also adopted two daughters, Cecilia and Josephine, after a prolonged journey with fertility treatments.
For her parenting style, she’s tried not to emulate her mother too much, preferring instead to give her kids a little more freedom.
“I don’t live through my kids. But I do know what will happen in life, and I just want them well prepared.”
And today you can find her rocking an ageless beauty on Instagram and being devoted to her business, reviewing looks, designs and business plans on the daily. She’s said, of not slowing down:
“I’m kind of proud [of ageing]. Ageism has always existed. As you get older you have to find your own relevancy for how you’re going to spend the rest of your life. It’s a number. But I see people doing their very best work as they get older. Experience, knowledge and wisdom stands for a lot.”
OUTRO:
Today, Vera Wang is more than a bridal designer—she’s a lifestyle brand. Fragrances, home goods, red carpet gowns, even figure skating costumes—yes, she returned to that world too. Full circle.
And here’s the entrepreneurial lesson: Vera didn’t stop at her first success. She scaled her vision. She diversified. She made luxury accessible without watering it down. And from her figure skating exit, to her Vogue exit, to her Ralph Lauren exit, she’s never been afraid of leaving a party when it was time to do so. And, just as importantly, despite the normal moments of uncertainty on the precipice of a big change, she’s always been able to get behind herself, to rally and put faith in what her talent, dedication and hard work could achieve.
In her 70s, she’s designing, posting outfits on Instagram, and serving “unbothered” looks that go viral. She’s proof that creativity doesn’t expire. Reinvention is ageless.
As the sole owner of her business, Forbes has reported that Wang’s net worth is around US$500 million.
So what do we take away from Vera Wang’s journey? Maybe this: that setbacks can be springboards. That reinvention isn’t weakness—it’s power. And that our truest selves often emerge when we stop asking for permission.
“That wraps up today’s episode of Ladies and Legends. Whether you admire her persistence, dedication and drive, or are inspired by her unwavering faith in herself Vera Wang is a study in building and becoming.
Thanks for listening. Be sure to follow the show, leave a review, and share this episode if you enjoyed it. I’m Juyun, and I’ll catch you next time on “Ladies and Legends.”
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