The Vera Wang Story | Vera Wang
Vera Wang didn't start the thing she's most famous for until she was 41. Before that? A failed shot at the 1968 Olympics, 17 years building a career at Vogue only to get passed over for editor-in-chief, and a quiet belief that maybe her window had already closed. In this episode I talk about a post that's been on my mind, about how the timelines we think we're supposed to be on are completely made up and how Vera Wang's story is one of the most powerful proofs of that I've ever come across. We talk about what it actually costs to lose a dream you built your whole identity around, how every "failed" chapter of her career ended up becoming the foundation for the thing she's known for today, and why "if not now, when" might be the only timeline that actually matters.
-
Welcome back to Fifteenish. This is Leah. Hey friends.
So I came across a post on Instagram the other day that hit pretty close to home. It was a post from Ashley Lemieux. Her handle is at Ashley K.
Lemieux, if you want to go find her. And it was a carousel of stats about women. And this is what the slide said.
The average age women give birth is 32, not 19. The average age women buy their first home is 40, not 25. The average age women reach peak earnings is 44, not 30.
And the average age for women to run a business is 50, not 29. And the last slide, it just said, timelines are made up. You guys, I just had to sit with this post for a minute.
And I know we've talked about timelines before, and it's a thread through a lot of our episodes, but it is so important to bring it to light again, because how many of us are walking around with this invisible deadline in our heads that somebody else
created? It's that false belief that if we haven't done the thing by a certain age, well, somehow we can't do it anymore, that the window is closed, that it's just too late.
And we carry that lie so much so, that we don't even notice it's there anymore. It's kind of like it's just ingrained in our brains, and it maybe runs our decisions that we make day to day, and the big ones too. Like, think about it.
How many times have you talked yourself out of something? Whether it was a career change or starting the thing, going back to school, whatever it is.
And not because you actually thought it through, but because some voice in your head said, you're too old for this now or you missed your window. That's the timeline lie making decisions for you, and you don't even clock it as a lie.
It just feels like common sense. And really, Ashley's post was a reminder to shake that lie and to remember it's not too late. Timelines are made up, and today's founder is proof of that.
2:14
Vera Wangʼs Early Path
Her name is Vera Wang. Oh, you know her? Well, she didn't start the thing that she's most famous for until she was 41 years old.
This is her story. Vera Wang grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Her parents were Chinese immigrants.
Her dad was a successful businessman, and her mom was, by all accounts, a true fashion icon before that phrase even existed.
Vera grew up going to the elite Chapin School, studying at the School of American Ballet, surrounded by culture and art and fashion from the time that she was a little kid. And at seven years old, she stepped onto the ice for the first time.
And that was it. She was hooked. Figure skating became everything.
Training, competing, hours and hours on the ice every single day. She was good enough that as a teenager, she was competing at the national level and setting her sights on something even bigger. She wanted to make the 1968 US.
Olympic team. But sadly, she didn't make it. I want you to think about the impact of this, especially as a kid.
You spent years, your entire childhood really, pouring everything into one singular dream.
You have woken up early and stayed up late and sacrificed the things that other kids your age were doing because you believed in this one thing, and then it doesn't happen.
And at 19 years old, the thing that you have built your whole identity around is just gone.
I think the most painful thing about that kind of failure, where you genuinely gave everything and it still wasn't good enough, well, it doesn't just take away the dream, it makes you question yourself, your worth, your direction, who you even are
without that thing that defined you. Vera has often talked about this. She said her career has been just as much about adversity as it has been about passion. She felt like she had fallen short and she blamed herself for it.
And yeah, she did get motivated by that eventually, but it wasn't this immediate pivot. It was way messier than that.
4:11
Fashion Career Beginnings
She went to Sarah Lawrence College, studied art history and found her way to her second great love, fashion and specifically Vogue magazine. At 23 years old, Vera Wang became one of the youngest editors in Vogue's history.
Yep, 23 years old and a part of this amazing world that Vogue opened up for her. She walked into one of the most prestigious fashion publications in the world and she was immediately exceptional at it.
She spent 17 years there working with the greatest photographers, the best models, the most creative talent in the industry. She built relationships and she built her reputation. Let's go back to that number of 17 years for a second.
Seventeen years is not a phase, it's not a stepping stone, it's a career. Most people would have looked at 17 years at Vogue and said, this is it, this is the thing, I have made it.
She had access, she had influence, she had the respect of everyone in the industry. She was a senior fashion editor at the most iconic fashion magazine in the world. And then after 17 years, they passed her over for editor-in-chief.
Now, I want to be really clear what that means.
Seventeen years, that's almost two decades of your life poured into one place, climbing and building and becoming indispensable, but then watching someone else get the path that you had been working toward.
5:31
Launching Bridal Business
So she left Vogue. She went to Ralph Lauren briefly as a design director, and then at nearly 40 years old, she got engaged. And when she went shopping for a wedding dress, she just couldn't find anything that she liked.
She had spent almost two decades working at the highest levels of fashion. She had an incredible eye for it. She knew exactly what she wanted and nothing on the market matched it.
The bridal world at the time was full of very stereotypical looks, poofy sleeves, heavy beading, stiff skirts, very traditional silhouettes.
And Vera wanted something clean, minimalistic, tailored, something that felt like fashion and not like a costume. She went to store after store, boutique after boutique, and kept walking out empty handed.
She just couldn't find exactly what she was looking for because honestly, it didn't exist yet.
Nobody had really looked at bridal fashion the way that she was looking at it, through the eyes of someone who had spent 17 years at Vogue, with access to the greatest designers in the world. Nobody had asked, why does none of this feel modern?
Well, it didn't exist, so she designed her own. Her dad watched her go through that whole frustrating process, and he saw it for what it was. A real problem with a real opportunity sitting right behind it.
So he gave her seed money to open a bridal shop. Vera Wang, who had spent decades building a career in fashion, said that she thought maybe it was just too late for her.
Too late, at 40, after everything she had already built, and she still thought that she might have already missed her window. But she went for it anyway. In 1990, Vera Wang opened her first bridal shop at Carlyle Hotel in New York City.
She was 41 years old. The early days were not all that glamorous. She started by carrying other designer's gowns.
She was building the business, learning what brides actually needed, figuring out how to translate her fashion eye into something specific, and personal, and wearable for one of the most important days of someone's life.
Then Vera started designing herself, and her aesthetic was immediately different from everything else in the bridal market.
There were clean lines, sophisticated silhouettes, gowns that felt like high fashion, not like something you'd find at a traditional bridal shop. And in 1994, she designed the costume for figure skater Nancy Kerrigan at the Olympics.
Same place where she failed to make the team 26 years earlier. But this time she went back, not as a skater, but as the designer who dressed one of the most watched athletes in the entire games.
It was a hand-beated ivory ensemble that millions of people saw. I just think that is such a wild, full-circle moment.
19-year-old Vera doesn't make the Olympic team, and then 26 years later, her name is tied to the Olympics anyway, just in a way that she probably never could have imagined back then. That was the moment that everything changed.
She started getting international attention. She had celebrities reaching out. She had a brand that now started moving in a completely different speed.
Today, Vera Wang is the most iconic bridal designer in the world. Her brand is worth over a billion dollars. She has boutiques everywhere.
And I keep coming back to what Vera Wang said. She said, I thought maybe it's just too late for me.
At 40, you guys, with a skating career behind her, 17 years at Vogue behind her, a stint at Ralph Lauren behind her, a life in fashion so rich and so full that most people would have called it a complete career already.
And she still thought she'd missed her moment. I wonder how many of us are walking around with that exact same thought right now. Maybe not at 40, maybe it's 28 or 33 or 45.
Just the silly belief that the door is closed or it's closing, or that the stuff we haven't done yet is proof that we're somehow behind. The average age for women to run a business is 50, not 29. Timelines are made up.
But here is what I also want to say, because I think this part gets missed in the Vera Wang Story.
9:24
Detours Are Foundation
It wasn't just that she started late, it's that everything that came before was actually building the thing. The skating taught her line and movement and grace, which she said has directly influenced her design aesthetic.
The 17 years at Vogue gave her access to the greatest creative talent in the world and an eye that could have not been developed any other way. The Ralph Lauren stint gave her real on the ground training as a designer. None of it was wasted.
None of it was the wrong path. She didn't fail at skating and then fail at Vogue and then accidentally stumble into something that worked. She built brick by brick, every single skill and relationship and piece of knowledge that she would need.
And then at 41, she opened a shop at the Carlisle Hotel and used all of it. I think about that when I look back at the things in my own life that maybe felt like detours or failures or wrong turns.
You know, that season didn't work out or that business didn't become what I thought it would, or the path that went somewhere different than I planned.
And I wonder how much of what I built in those seasons is actually going to show up in the thing that maybe I haven't built yet. Because honestly, I think about this podcast that way.
Everything I built before this, the real estate career, the event business, partnerships that didn't work out, all of it gave me something.
Maybe it's the ability to talk to people or the understanding of what it means to bet on yourself, or maybe the experience of failing and starting over and failing again and starting over again. I couldn't do this show without all of that.
And none of it felt like it was leading here when I was in the middle of it. But here's what Vera Wang's story says to me.
Not just that it's not too late, but that the thing you're supposed to build might actually require everything that came before it. Let me say that for you again.
But the thing that you're supposed to build might actually require everything that came before it. And maybe the detours aren't detours, maybe they're the foundation.
Another thing that Vera said that I just love, she said, I always sort of dreamed of being a fashion designer, and I thought, well, if I don't try now, I'm never going to be able to do it. If I don't try now.
Not when the timing is perfect, not when she felt fully ready, not when someone handed her the opportunity or gave her permission, just if not now, when, and then she went. So here is what I want to leave you with.
Forget the timeline that you're supposed to be on, the one in your head that someone else handed you, that you never really actually agreed to. What would you go after if you stop believing that you were behind? I want you to say it with me.
Timelines are made up. So if not now, when? Thanks for being here.
I'll see you next week.
Sources & Disclaimer
CNBC — Vera Wang interview and career retrospective
Council of Fashion Designers of America — Vera Wang, Womenswear Designer of the Year 2005
Vera Wang — verawang.com/pages/about
Wikipedia — Vera Wang entry
Vogue — archival profiles on Vera Wang's tenure
Instagram — @ashleyklemieux (post referenced in episode opener)
All facts shared in this episode are based on information available at the time of recording. Any personal reflections, interpretations, or opinions are my own. If anything is found to be inaccurate, I'm happy to issue a correction.
