Julia Gets Wise with Vera Wang
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Well, hello, there it's me, Julia li dice. I'm so happy to be back for season three of wiser than me. And to celebrate that, I am so excited to share that we have partnered with lingua franca, a new york city based luxury and sustainable clothing brand, to offer our listeners wiser than me.

Specific and and brother sweaters, sweater, ts and more. I've gotten to hand select each of the items in this curated collection. And i've had so much fun with that along the way, adding a bunch of saying from our podcast to the items. IT all combines lingua Franks shake yet forel designs with our mission to celebrate the wisdom of older women. So check out our collection by heading over to wither the me shopped up com and clicking on the lingua fra collection.

lemonade.

You know, if you look at old pictures of me as a kid, you're gone to see a little girl who thinks that her White gogo boots and sway fringe vest are the bomb, or my White crochet dress with a ribbon that my mom added to IT at the on peer line, or my blue seer socket suit that I war when I flew on airplanes. Because that's what people used to do. They would dress up when they went on airplanes.

I remember exactly what I felt like to wear those clothes. They made me feel exceptional dressing up. Oh man, how I love IT and how I still do the ultimate real life dress up has got to be the wedding down, right? This may be low key.

One of the best things about legalize gay marriage because now everyone's in on IT it's dress ups is playing princess um I got married in one thousand nine hundred eighty seven. I was a child bride. Obviously, I was actually kind of Young and my wedding dress was very lady die inspired.

I wasn't a big lady die person anything but her wedding dress as IT had up a room with a view vibe, and I was just so crazy about that movie. Lady dies just had these puppy sleep with two layers of lace that came off the cuff. And I totally stole that for my dress, which was a sort of study of everything awful in the eighties.

Well, I mean, that's not fair. IT was fine, but I was so eighties. That's one of the great things about clothes, right? They identify an error.

Those clothes that I love so much as a kid, there is no coasting that that's sixties and seventies. Just look back to history across the globe, across cultures. And the clothes that people wear, they say so much, they absolutely tell the story of the time.

Lincolns had a queen Elizabeth lacing around her neck, shares to my princess purple everything. It's time travel. It's all a paged.

It's just single at the ball, right? And that's how I felt at my wedding. I was in della at the ball. And so maybe i'm a tiny bit embarrass when I look at that dress now.

But IT was a statement of a particular moment, the huge sleeves, the sweet heart neckline, the fabric flowered reef in my hair, and pretty sure bread war suit. Anyways, man, IT was romantic, and I was getting married. And for that, okay, I admit IT IT was perfect.

Oh, and okay. And you know what I did, I have this tiny little dolphin that was hand carved out of stone, sort of a charm, like a little tassen. And I had them saw IT into my dress, because I thought that was a good symbol of joy.

You know, dolphins are so joyful, isn't there? cool. But get this. I told them not to tell me where they saw IT, and I still don't know where IT is in the dress, which I think is kind of fabulous.

Is there where fortune whispers zone in with lucky threads of Grace? Now that I think of IT closely SE, our wedding was really, honestly, I was a hell of a production. I had a reasonable number, brights mates and god debora's made dresses.

They were fantastic. They were drop wasted. And they were a heavy linen and a very particular Green, a salad on Green.

It's a color straight out of shabby shek and more, Ashley and ladies and german, that Green does not exist in this century. But they were gorgeous. My friend rose mary warn made them.

And SHE is the most whimsical, lovely artist. And that's what these dresses were. They had a kind of A A sellar color, beautiful.

And then after the reception, I changed out of my wedding down into my going away dress. That was the same pattern as a brights made dresses. But I was in a kind of a cream color.

And the sailor color IT was made out of this exquisite antiques. And I had a close hat for the love of god and new flowers. And well, anyway, you get the idea I kind of got Carried away.

But that's what fashion is for, to just Carry away. We dressed up for our rituals. The clothes we wear convey import, and there are huge part of what makes an event special.

And i'd love IT. I got to to say, I mean, there's really honestly nothing like shake well, tailor close to make you feel confident and different, unique. And someone actually designs all those incredible cloth.

And I have been so lucky working with insanely talented designers for red carpet looks. So when you see what a truly gifted fashion designer does up close, oh my god, what a thrill making people feel beautiful. IT is an art.

And these designers, they are masters. They capture a feeling a whole era, everything that needs up to that moment. They capture all of that in a single government. Just well, how lucky then, that today we are talking to vera wang.

Hi, i'm july li. Drive this. This is wiser than me, the podcast where I get schooled by women who are wiser than me.

Okay, so what do Victoria back on, Jennifer Lopez, kim choe, hardacre, an on a gra issaa, maria Carry, cargill and Chelsea clinton all have in common? Yep, their wedding gowns were all designed by today's guest. Before he started designing what dresses, SHE was a world class figure scatter, missing the one thousand hundred and sixty eight olympic team by, like one double axe cow or something.

And when the skating door closed, he graduated from celebrations and quickly became the Youngest editor at vogue, gazing on a winter or set of her. No one at vogue was funnier, or more industrious, or louder, or more neurotic, or more enduring. SHE left vog after seventeen years to join raw flooring, and then at forty, when he was about to walk down the eye of herself, SHE noticed there was a lack of fashion for looks in the brighter landscape.

And he saw an opportunity. SHE left refrain and became a designer in her own right, starting with a sweeping makeover of the bridal industry. In a flash, SHE was sitting high atop her own fashion empire.

Oh yeah. She's also designed costumes for olympic skaters Michelle kon ni cargan and for Nathan chan, who won the gold wearing viewing in twenty twenty two. Her business mind is kind of unparalleled. She's on all the forbes magazine list you can think of. And her work ethic, persistence and drive our legendary SHE said her designs don't really have a signature look because in life there is no signature woman.

And it's true her designs are for the or the good girl, the dramatic, the punk croker and the cardsharps am so happy to talk to this incredible business woman, the winner of the national medal of the arts from president biden, also the winner of the john down air from the french republic. I think that makes her neither something. And I went in on that action. She's a mother and a creative ju, gg or nut who is so much wider than me. Vera wang, high viewing.

high kill the way. And i'm not wider than you. Oh my god. No, i'm intimidated.

No, no, no, not at all. Now, first of all, i've got to ask you, are you comfortable to ask you a real age via, sure.

i'm seventy four years now. Be seventy five on the twenty seventh of june this year, some seven, four and three quarters.

good. I and how well do you feel? Do you think .

on some days two hundred and maybe some days eighteen, now I have twenty eight thirty. Has that twenty thirty running the game? Yeah, running the gamma? It's kind of road.

You've had a huge life. I can see why that would be the case. What you think the .

best thing is about being your age. And i'm here, as they say, golf metaphor and decided of the long or the pudding Green or whatever. I think that that's kind of a big dance kind of starting because when you think you're three quarters of a century, all that sort of like, you know, I went across the atlantic at least six, eight times, and my mother and SHE never wants to fly.

And so I was, I won the sister ships of the titanic. Get out. So where the Martinia only IT was karg lines on White star. So i've lived through a lot of massive changes, real changes. I mean, I feel like i'm on some massive elastic trip or something.

Well, that's thrilling. It's a thrilling. You're on a joy ride.

One of its joy, one of the word is joy. Well.

that sounds like IT to me. I mean, you've persevered. You've had an enormous, huge amount of experience, which is why you're here today because we're dying to talk to about about your life experience. I have the great fortune of being dressed by you both for the the twenty twelve amies yes, twenty twenty Oscar yeah and actually it's kind of funny.

It's sort of a new thing, yes, in my lifetime, right? When I started, when I went to the mice for the first time in one thousand nine and ninety two, you know, you would buy your own stuff yeah. And then since then, the idea of somebody dressing you and connecting you with a designer, that's a business all into itself.

yes. And this process of getting new dress is it's just all knew. How does your team at version ang decide who they want to dress for an a warra red carpet? How do you come to those conclusions? I'm actually really curious .

in here I think sometimes is met and sometimes we really do try to approach someone. Um IT really depends on the artist of the actor IT just really depends. Back in the day, I know that I developed a friendship with chance down away before our addresser, and we sort of mention that have ever go the Oscars.

I'd like you address me. And that was right when SHE hitting on basic instant. And SHE really did common say, you know, i'm going and I never thought I would really happen, but IT really did.

And IT was a very memorable moment of my career, active bonce as a designer because here we'd had these other twenty years in working vogue and they're working for alfon. And IT was pivotal. And SHE came out and everybody serve at that point and wearing our money and they are wearing a lot of very important jackets with trousers like a APP bending.

And a lot of our money is, at that time, his real clients. And I put on a ball down this kind of retro when you think about IT back then. And um I mean, I guess IT was a big boost for my personal for my work and for everything else in hollywood, believe IT or not more than anywhere. Well.

I mean, I think the the thing is so incredible about your designs here. I mean, there's so many things that are incredible about them, but I think that there you make dramatic choices. Um can we pull up the dresses that I were that you?

Yes, yes.

yes. I want to see this. okay. So that was twenty, twenty. And for the people listening, we're looking at a picture of me in a blue SHE dressed a via design that I wore to the Oscars that year.

So i'm going to comment on you, well, that's really that's really a sheet with a modified merge. It's a slip dress in essence. And I want to says that I prepared something about you because really, in a way, you are a minimalist from what i've seen.

Certainly when I member you, that I adjusts you for a long time. I I was studying that before I ever dressed you. And I, I think that i'm at your core. You person are minimize and a modernist and there's always an intelligence to who you are as not only actor but as a woman and I think we one tries to respect least I try to respect who the woman is as a person, not simply the different roles they play because obviously some thousand deep, all those things are amazing roles. But when you're not in those rules and you are yourself on the red carpet, I think it's nice really shown another dimension to who you are totally.

And I appreciate what you're saying. I think a minimum list look looks best on me because i'm very small, I sure. And I think a lot of proof and stuff can h sometimes not work, but something tied to body, maybe less is more. I guess in my my case.

every woman has to edit for themselves what they feel. I think a woman never looks more beautiful or more confident than when she's comfortable. And so I think comfort both physically and also emotionally and artifically and creatively. I think that's woman feels true to herself, whatever that persons is to me. That's when they looked their best and feel their best.

That's incredible wisdom. I couldn't I know you're write about that. Of course you're write about that. And so IT can be anything as long as you're comfortable .

in IT right?

Um hey.

have you had .

collaborations? I don't know if you want to say, but how a collaboration that ever .

backfired. I I want name my name, but I too, really, that episodes, and one was with a very, very wonderful Young actor. SHE was incredible, and I made her something.

But the eye make up that he wore to the golden globes, I believe, was so heavy and IT sort of running down her face. And I was, in a way, blamed. They said, how could you do that to her? But I didn't do the makeup.

I'm not going to do with that. Another one is, I won't say the name, but an x Oscar winner. And I dress for fears, and he wears something that was really proud because I took a chance.

IT was minimal, geometric, all these kinds of things I loved. And yet her hair dresser with something very strong, very strange. And we got really a lot of trouble for that as well, though we had nothing to do with that, believe in or not. And those two times were upsetting because I felt up really speaks to .

how important here and make up is.

I'm senior makeup for you. I called my .

up time for you there. I wearing makeup for you. Look, say.

and I have a great makeup person who literally eyes color SHE puts my face on my face. And I never used swarm makeup. You know, very few vote editors ever war makeup for twenty. Well.

it's a pain in the ass. Yeah, a pain in the makeup is a pain in the ass. I don't.

And I like some days. I like sometimes how I look without any someday.

Well, sometimes what i'll do, I don't wear make up really in my everyday life, except how, where. And I think that that can help to pop the face. And I have to say, just so that people know that working with you and your team is unsurpassed.

I will say that. Thank you that such a one.

And I really mean that because you are so collaborative, you're so thoughtful, you're so well. Your artistic sense is a obviously subway and I don't know, I have a feeling of I trust you and that's a big deal because .

that's a huge shelf.

So much is on the line. That's the thing that I wanted talk about for saying this. So much is on the line for us as celebrity types walking the carpet. IT is hard.

It's brutal. I've had client have taken to the meat gala and that stairwell going up that first stair. I mean, they just intimidated by IT. I can get up those shares. And also, so many things come in to play when you're going to these events because the dress has to function as well. People don't realize that they think maybe it's just a beautiful gun, but extremely long train when the room is mobile is whether it's funny, fair, whether it's the governors ball, but it's all the big dinners for abc Oscars.

Anytime i've warned a train and everyone steps, it's got and ripped at the bottom, everyone steps on. It's so irritating. It's like somebody y's pulling your email from .

the back and I think you don't see that they don't understand their logistic involved as well.

There a lot to consider. There's a lot. But hey, you are what do you do when you have somebody who has somebody working with his anxiety about their body?

I think everyone does.

Everyone guys, everybody has IT. But like somebody who's really anxious about what their body looks like, do you find yourself being in a position of trying to sort of talk him down? Now.

you know, I think IT is I have had some experience. I want name names, but I think i'm i'm fairly good as a woman designer for other women that understand womens, I feel like understand them instinctively and how they want to look for male designers. I've often on said this in interviews, they approach one with news, and they have, perhaps they they use their news to which they can filter and receive different concepts.

But for women, designers is so personal why they are mere donor Karen or mutual proto jail sander. We late our closed on the first sevel we where we put them on discipline. And that gives you an entire of and taken understand what a link should be, what a lining shouldn't be, should to be stretched and not, should to provide support, or should be lose and very open IT really depends. Amazing if .

you're talking about having the female perspective as a designer. Yes, I am. It's a game changer.

I am I think that's A I mean and it's a wheel window into design. Um I think that's fascinating. I'd never considered that and I think it's important to consider .

men brings certainly and abstractness to IT. They're not wearing the dress. They have insult the dress.

A different perspective completely for a woman signer. I pretty much see how women can lock. I do see that.

Yeah, that's right. Don't go anywhere. There's more with viewing after this short break.

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I want to talk about how your personal style has evolved as you've age. How is IT? I'm going to .

say that most of my life i've been a collector of clothing. And I have to say, putting together clothing for me on myself is how I experiment and grow. As a thinker, as an artist, as a designer. I experiment on myself.

But now, when you say you're a collector of cloth and fashion.

not just close access, I wear OK jewelry. The history of jury, I mean, this is all true. I would like to come .

to your house and look in your closet. That sounds like a shit ton of fun.

Anytime, hate.

Listen also, your hair is so long and jeep like it's so gorgeous. It's like the hair, you die, your hair and seven, five years old. okay. But so here's my question. Have you ever considered .

going right? I can't I look into IT. I'll tell you what my hair is not evenly overall like that.

One of my best friends in london went fully great, but are here is the color of IT and the cut and the tech. And it's even he does not have to color parts. Mine is not. So I would look like a bad sunk.

Okay, got IT. okay. So keep IT as is. Why do you think women, by the way, as they get older, why do you think women very frequently cut their hair short?

What's your tax? I think women were told that, I mean, to be very honest, they were told, you know, if you keep a long passes, them are told, women are told a lot of .

things you're too much ever.

and I can speak us had told seventy five that I don't believe, I believe in each woman is individual. SHE is herself. SHE is unique.

And no one should say you're not, you not that I do attribute their best cells. I really hope for that. But i'm also saying that everyone is unique.

How can you make a blanket statement about all people? I mean, that does not make any sense, particular an x editor and servi designer. I mean, fifty five years this year I will be in fashion fifty five years.

that is crazy.

It's my family day. My thirty fit your only my own company which try doing this for thirty five years. That's all gna said. And IT is my faky fifth or in fashion from when I started.

was your mom fashionable?

Close horse? SHE is my first influence, and he always SHE had so much. What did you wear? What did he wear? Now there was a str back.

They called Hardy carney and forty nine, two between matters and and fifth, there was also sex with avenue. And in those says, you could not get european close in america. You you go to Alexander.

You, you seek funny face without happen. yeah. And fred of you, yours went to europe to buy the rights to copy clothing.

How's that french clothing in market? Oh, my g and where you bought the copies, you couldn't get, you couldn't get, dear, you couldn't get any of those houses. And did your .

mother wear those copies?

My mother got some copies. But we also started going to paris pretty much every year, every few years, so he could shop in pass. And SHE really introduced me to eat on a home because he was a Young guy, and he found love with SHE.

Always admired artists. He was a real woman, truly woman of substance. And I know that from my mother, I learned he is sustained me every age I never forget.

And I was Young. I was like, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, eighteen. SHE said, every age has a unique time and beauty .

that's lovely.

like chanel. And he said, it's not the same. IT never will be.

But you find your way through, actually, say, decades. But he said every stage, and that always took that with me. And then I remember something else at the same thing.

When you're Young, you know, what you look like is god given. But as you age to tell, you've lived. I think I might .

be misquoting SHE now orgel speaks to age and that that's so phenomenon. What a gift your mother gave you.

I think when people say dressing Young, I think i'm really just dressing expressively as a designer. Summer to vote fifty, fifty five years of my life to dressing women.

So you're growing up in new york. You're living this fabulous life. And around this time you also fell in love with figure skating. So remind me how older you when you started skating.

Six, wow. Semi, second street, central park, the cell, bel plant froze over. And here is a crazy story.

My father skated in china. What are the chances my dad could figure? Can you figure its really it's insane.

So I won me skate for Christmas, took in the central park. We live downtown. The time we lived on twenty three brought me up. And that whenever I go to central park, I remember that was when I first stated, and I found love .

with that are still.

I still in love, that that's nice. It's the most freedom. It's the only sport that exists where you can be an artist and an athlete, and you can skate to music, and you can have choose phy and you cannot speak and you have a letter ism and you have discipline and you you learn a metaphor for life, and in you fall so much to learn.

And that's what you take with you the rest of your life that you can fail, but pick yourself up my life to find by missing many goals. I always said that I didn't make IT to the olympic team I worked above for many years, and I never really got the top job. And someone far more, far Better for in high insight and more qualified than but I was there for seventeen years and and then I went, well, from I work.

I was just honor there to be a part of this team. I am I felt grateful to work for him and what I learned. And then I went in my own company, and that has been at times of sillery, but I would save eighty five percent sweat and fifteen .

percent more. In other words, all of those, I don't know, I don't know when to call them failures.

but they're not failures. But there are limitations.

the limitations or the experiences that didn't a work out the way you thought they might inform how you made decisions and what you've done with your life in a very, very significant way. Um I know you've talked about IT when you didn't make the olympic team that was a wicked below .

I A nervous breakdown. You did. Yeah, I did drop out of college for a year. I had a break. Now, I mean, here.

and what can you do? What did you do? Did you have to go into therapy for a long time?

I left sera laws. Um I moved to paris. I was able to do that.

Not everyone is and IT was devastating when you are so consumed by something that they not realized that the first one years of my life I trained a balancing school of american ballet. And balancing was still alive at that point with all the russian teachers. And I didn't help my skating. I didn't to give me more line, more connection, more extension, more movement, more knowledge and choose phy and movement. When you do that and you skate the on the summer ten hours a day, and in the winter.

training was like ten hours.

not ready, skate five hours. And I loved that. I was the last get off of the zamboni machine because I loved IT. And when you fail, and there's nowhere to go, because I didn't really want to perform, and I shot of some college, I was so arms, I had a breakdown because there's nothing to fill that void, none only physically but creatively emotional.

And so then what and how did you pave IT out?

I i'll tell you, I was in paris, and at the time I was staying the champion e france a figures gaining catch pera and he educated me on french fashion. And one of his best friends was an editor, french folk, nearly the anwar and I didn't know when edited to even was I mean, I I saw ve my mother dress fashion, but I didn't think of working fash and never even occurred to me. And I saw when an editor was, and I creating pictures and I was like making movies, so I said, but I wanted do that. So when I got back to new york, I went back and finished college, and I took a job in the summer's a sales assistant and e and medicine and seventy first man.

I think a lot of my life was played out in seventies, I guess seventies, the streets and when I was there I met this woman, Frances stein, who said me, when you finish your studies college, call me you should come to vote to work and I went to my mother, I said this woman said he would and my mother revoke, obviously and um yeah I said, this woman said, you get me a job at vogue and I must know you want he's just been polite to you but that's my parents. They were tough yeah boy were they tough and they only they only wanted meet if they want me to see, they want islands, they went into fluff. That was not there thing.

There are there. You did IT. I know they are into excEllence. You did excEllence. You did that for them. Yeah, but after vogue, so then you'd left to and you you became a design director for us.

Yes, I i'd wanted to be on a fashioned center also in the beginning, and my father wouldn't pay. After the first day, I got all in the fashion. Yeah, and I said, maybe could I go back to school, learn about design? He said, not, not paying for any more tuition after several arms, and there was an extra year locked in there too.

He said, if you think you're so hot, go get a job and fashion and see if you even like right? And so I said, a lot of the kids that I speak to a week gone back to high school, I say, go get a job because a moist thing. Ask and get paid to learn yeah, and see if you really like IT cause a lot of in turns to head to the years Young women and men have said I wanted be in fashioned. Some of them were the children and of friends or or other designers. And sometimes they'd said, after their stints, I don't want to go near this.

So the but that's good.

Or I do right, or I do you and I want with my company, did did that to them, or that was me. I did to whatever. But you learned you really see that you really want to work in IT? Or do you want to just shop? Or do you just want to photograph yourself? I mean, it's not the same thing.

No, it's not right that and .

we love people want to shop. We need that. We need more a bit, bring IT on.

but you don't need them working for you necessarily. So what advice would you give to people who are listening today who want to have a career pivot at the age of forty?

Is that that all is not that all everyone says is Young.

Forty is Young, but still was. But I mean.

I was a man I didn't get marry. I was forty three days shine my forty. I got made IT under that forty wire, and I got married.

But I never even I grew up in an age. We never thought about that stuff even. Maybe it's too busy working, but I know all my mother's friends.

So what's wrong with her? You can get a husband, and I end up dressing brides. I mean, you have to admit there are right. I mean.

await. I have to show you something. So I got married in one thousand nine hundred and eighty seven.

right? I got my tears after you. And i'm much old thing, kay.

But wait, you need to look. We're going to show, I want to show you my dress, which will also put up on our social look at my dress fear.

Oh my god. Yes, you look beautiful. I love the bookie to always tell brides be couple the bookie, because I never look at the books for all the findings.

And then someone is the party plan of the floor. He is quite the tack from the bride dress process. Yes, give A O that doesn't resonate with the dress and can really run all our hard work. Hard to say being on. But you look, fabius, the scale of thank you.

The thing is, is that the one thing i'll say about this dress IT was around the time lady diso IT has so it's sort of a nod to a lady dies with the yes, yes, it's also I loved, loved, loved the movie room with a viewed, you remember that movie?

Vera.

yes, I loved IT. So this was sort of in that vein of room with a view. IT was corseted top and a big puppy skirt. And my veil was went well beyond the train.

Now, this this has stood the test of time.

I'm so happy you think this, you know, who designed IT? I O, well, I sort of made IT up myself while I worked with the guy who was, at the time, the costume, a designer at esl. Wow, why not? Why not? I mean, it's too. I knew, I mean, I didn't know anybody.

I mean, I just, I love your hair. There's a romance to this paper. I love your face.

I love the light, light, light makeup. It's beautiful. Oh, good.

I'm so happy that you like IT.

It's not incorporating too much stuff in a way. The book speaking and IT brings a film of nature to the dress. You know. I mean, IT doesn't look like it's a cena piece for a table.

I so appreciate that. And then one of my very best friends, pola, who actually produces this podcast with me, h got marry ten years later.

And look at what .

SHE war via let me that .

you I know ah we ve got very minimal, there's a question.

but look how that I stood. The test of time doesn't exquisite, yes, but the difference between in these ten years, the reason i'm showing you these two pictures as quick as IT speaks to your influence in this brial industry and design in general, of course. But I mean, there IT showed up in our lives.

And wow, anyway, I just thought you would get a kick out of that. Stay put. My conversation with viewing continues in just a moment.

I know you have two daughters.

Yes, I do. no.

So what? What is your relationship to your daughter? Sense of style and .

our god rough subject. I mean, I have a daughter that love fashion, but I guess over save and I going to parenting issues, and I member saying, i'm having this particular prom with my older daughter because she's very headstrong, so don't you wanted to be that way and away? I said, we are not really living IT everyday.

But anyway, so SHE loves fashion. But as an individualist, which I hope every woman is, yes, SHE lives fashion to her own lens. Sure, IT is in my lands, but she's very accommodating.

If I say you have to go to me, don't event you have to wear me. She's that you will do IT. And she's glad to do IT sh'll do IT.

Well, that's respectful.

right? I have another daughter that really have some warn me very, very much ever. R, i'm hoping I get the wedding before I die.

Both weddings. They are most of my friends kids weddings. But.

but wait, well, that you will dress them for their wedding, correct?

I certainly hope i'm alive and well and can do IT. I don't want to exert pressure, say hurry up, but because I had none on me. But I mean the Young my Younger daughter actually works in your industry and and she's an extremely conservative and quiet and you know he doesn't want to ever look to sex or anything like that and whatever I buy her, I just finally gave up after, you know, fifteen Christmases s and birthdays, I said, you know what want you just choose and i'll pay for that became the motor's Operandi for many, many years. And when I asked to say, per, to do something with me on the right card, but SHE will consider bringing that .

he doesn't like .

any of that got, maybe because I designed clothing for women that they both have their own take that could very well be the case.

Sure, of course. yeah. Make sense. They have to find their .

own pat on. yeah. And I think that for me IT some ventas frustrating.

A I can't say the mom IT isn't so early on. They were their own people. And I guess I love that. I guess I gotta love IT.

Yeah, no, of course you've gotta love IT.

That's who you are. That's what I say to women. And I have to accept .

in my own home. That's exactly right. You do. How did you baLance your professional life and guys designing the bright alone line, the awards season ready to wear? And you have these two children.

Did you do IT and sick parents, very sick parents .

and sick parents.

The last thirteen years of each of their lives was brutal. I'm so sorry to hear that I was never going to let my parents alone and in a hospital, a bed, and I want to be there as much as I can. And I was, and I have never grabs, but I did get very, very, very tough.

I mean, building a company to Young children and both parents and fourteen suffered a great deal. They were not easy deaths, and they were long and drawn out. At one point, they cross server.

So I was running at york press for chance, running between floors, because one with pulmonary and the other was on a stroke. So on my daughter stroke many, and my mother ever didn't long, and my father got a prospect cancer. So i'd become a bit of an activist for that.

And so here you are. You've got these two kids. Yes, your parents are ill and dying.

and my husband committing to london for business.

Okay, so your husband, yeah, was going to london, so wasn't around. How did you hold IT together? What did you do? And then how did you manage your grief? Because I think talking about grief is a always a part of these conversations.

How not be? How could I not be right? Life is a certain.

Life is great. I talk to my, I talked a lot of the people I work at her, like my day family. We talk, I talk to them about these things are much Younger. But I tried to say, prepare yourself. And jane said, a panda on your podcast, he said, yes, this is not easy and I just kept on identity and think you literally put yourself on the ten for er you run char parents. You run that whenever a nurse calls her doctor calls.

Um then you also try to be there for your children and I think during that period, which was very formative for them, I wasn't there enough and I regret, I mean, I was up against mm and i'm nothing but respect for women who choose to make that their lives work. I mean, so many friends that have, I mean um I couldn't do the best Brown bad lunch and the best samedi couldn't do enough library book drives for the kids at school. I could I would come to the um volleyball matches of the gym asc matches, and i'd have to leave early.

And one time my daughter just start to cry why you always have to leave early. And so you know, women are not like as far as we've come, we still assume so much of the burden of life. And now that we drove work into IT as another part on anyone who says it's easy is not being truthful because something has to give.

And very often it's us. It's us that has to give and people don't understand. We're all super woman.

I mean that yeah I mean, I in, my in and hail is exhAusting. IT can be accelleration at the same, yes, but that was a huge bounce for me because I was working full time when I had both of my boy. yes. And for me that was a constant struggle figuring out how to stradling the world of motherhood and a professional life.

yes. And when you're on top of the juggling, making your kids feel safe and protected and offering them every opportunity you can possibly offer, because that's basically parenting, is to prepare them, I think, for the world ahead as much as you can, as unpredictable IT is.

Have you been able to with your girls? Have you been able to sort of reconcile that deficit from their youth to a certain extent you talk about IT with them.

I think one would have to ask them, to be perfectly honest, I really think you'd have to ask them. I think that you know that you know are certainly grown up now and so they see things in a different perspective and um you know there may be more forgiving or they may be understand Better that also I mean, maybe people don't realize this about me what the percept? I'm no idea, but I had to work to provide the lifesaver that they lived. IT was a truly an ego, or my passion for women and clothing and dressing IT was also necessity.

Can you talk about transitioning into being single because you are got a you marriage you were married for how many years? Twenty something? Yes, I think right.

yeah. Trying to think exactly what the years for. I think maybe at that time, 2t two years。

And what was that transition like?

Very difficult, I have to be honest, because IT wasn't when we literally separated. IT was prior by about five, six years. And i'm one knows people never quit so i'm up for therapy, whatever, clinging on with my fingernails train, hoping, wishing and that's why, yes, I mean, you know, I am not someone says next or you if you and you, I you that that's not always healthy.

I mean, IT can be very detrimental your emotional health and your and your psych and your sense of yourself and your self respect and dignity. And I think I was a cleaner and I tried here. I had kids and people say it's always about keeping the family together. IT isn't. It's also about yourself.

You're honest. Of course, it's about your health.

yet. How do you go from making a commitment to someone that you think you're gona build a life with? yes. And then all the sudden or some incident or some determination makes you realize that IT isn't gonna work, because for someone else involved, and they may not want IT 嗯 哼。

嗯 哼。

or they may not want IT in the way you want IT. right? Yeah, fair.

Is that fair? Yeah, I totally get IT. Everybody's a different expectation level of a marc. And in a marriage is hard.

Yeah, marriage can be very hard. IT can be wonderful, but I can also .

be very difficult. Yes, metaphor for life, you know? Yeah, no. IT is getting getting up when you fall, when you're going to bad patches and have to try somehow work through IT, you know, yeah, but IT was brutal.

but you got through IT IT.

seems i'm trying sell to get through. I mean, i've dated. You have dated.

yeah. I mean, literally date. Now what date implants are not date means anymore.

My age. No, no, I have. Obviously I tried your relationships. It's not easy. And I think that when you are working, woman, to the extent that I am and other women are that I know and love and respect, yes, sometimes maybe maybe can be a bit intimidating.

Yeah, I was about to say men can be intimidate by that. Totally get IT. But you'd like, I would imagine you kind of like being single too.

That's a sense. I I one thing, yeah, I started to be able to have the awesome and empty, yeah, make their friends and kids running around, their friends running around and running a daycare center, which I love you I know I love that everybody comes my house and get big mac, you happy meals and all the mothers who would be angry at me, but I thought was a treat you know, I ride the kids.

But I have to say, um, could I love of goals but I think that one thing is good, as I began being alone, to be able to give myself permission to take a little bit Better care of myself, which I could never fit in. When you when you're running a company and your got kids and they're going up and going to their stages, you like, yeah first bombs bot mizpah um yeah getting in the schools. S A T A C T getting touters. I mean, all the things you have to do with kids and stage from party training, you know, all the way through, all the way through. I mean, a parent doesn't enter.

they die. yeah. So taking Better care of yourself, which I wanted to ask you about. So let's talk about that.

I don't feel all the time, I don't feels tense. Um I did start to realize I was losing on lung capacity in in muscle strength at one point a few years ago comes i've always been an athlete, but I never worked out consistently. After appeared, I broke my ankle and thirty seven after that, I couldn't.

I couldn't really do what I like. I was a runner, and i'm very knowledgeable about the, obviously, dance about to be a other level of knowledge. I mean fairness, truthful.

But I pride myself on trying to, whenever I could. With the schedules I had, I got erotic working out not consist all through, but I really decided blast August in a particular difficult schedule year. We are two moves, our corporate move, and then we changed stores in la.

And that was just, he added Cherry on top of running the company. And I I made IT a decision for myself that I would really try to gain strength again. Some happy and pushing eighty two hundred pound like Prices now, and and not nice and not crazy. I mean, I don't do IT you know, I don't work out in a gym three hours a day, I know of time, but back in three in a forty minute walk like my sister all loves to walk and now she's more retired to walk two hours with with my brother. But I tried to fin and that, and I make an effort to make that happen now .

for other time to be to .

everybody needs to, there's your debt to talk to this hour you can do in any other time. You find your self and tie for every other appointment. And I finds, you know what, i'm be sent me five and if I camping n gotten our day for myself and there's something really wrong so i've gained .

a lot of your top. I love, I love. It's so divine. How much sleep do you get a night?

Um I would sing minute eight, and on a very good day, there days I can go ten.

Is there anything that you do to ensure a good sleep?

Is there any? I ve changed. I have changed. I used to watch C, D. And something false safe with the clt the, 嗯， 哼。 But now i've changed.

I turn the TV off, and I read a bit of a friend who brings me books, who actually works to me as well. And he brings me book switch. I started reading again, which I kind of really love. And even I can get them maybe four, five steps pages, you maybe chapter two, depending on the book. But that helps Smith calm down.

yeah. Well, speaking of coming down and relaxing, I want to ask you about your vodka.

I always a cartel at night. I mean, like to have one, although I was having a lot of dental surging this past. You're not antibodies.

You really can do that. I mean the application y of antibodies ts and work with alcohol. So I you basically at to stop for quite a while.

But I like a cocktail. I don't mean five and I mean three. I like a country out night before dinner, and I just like IT. Well, I would love to have .

sometime we have to have a voca tail together. That would be really nice.

Yes, it'll have to be my vodka. It'll have to be my.

without question, I need to start push them. No, no, i'm happy to push IT and i'm happy to try IT and I can't wait to try your voca. Okay, vera, is there's something you would go back and tell yourself a twenty one.

Yes, I would be more premeditating how I preached life. Oh, i've been more of a person that was organic. Things came my way and not came my way that way. I mean, things occurred. And I just think, god, that seems like a good idea at the time, like a boat. A I didn't run into cy us thinking i'm gonna evoke editor I was in a way to discover and I think IT also Richard happened on I have to thank my god rest this so I always recommended that I become an editor because he believed in me um from the time was an assistant of both but I have to say that I have learned to be more not even strategic but to think and steps but when I was Young I didn't at twenty one didn't even occur to me .

nothing steps yeah very, very good.

I didn't OCR to me then building blocks .

totally is or something you're looking forward to.

I'm looking forward to having more persons time. That's something i've really discovered and IT, I don't know it's because of my age or because of fashion and the workload. And IT doesn't leave a lot of room to think about yourself. You're very busy extremely trying to relate and to create and to the same. Yeah that's a chAllenge for people any age .

yeah IT is a chAllenge. It's a baLance. Yes, you're talking about baLance and wellness and and all of IT and keeping your .

sanity and keeping your sanny holding on your sanity ring to .

with the hard and soul of this has been the best conversation ever. You've been incredibly generous, and I just admire you beyond. Well, I can't articulate how much I admire you. I think you are a hugely wonderful person.

Love you. Thank you very much. Thank you for the.

Well, wasn't that a treat? Okay, so i'm going to call my mom on zoom so I can tell her all about this conversation.

Hi, mom, I love. How are you good? How are you doing? I'm good. So mum, today we spoke to vera wang.

You know what? There just something about your clothes, simple. And they are so capacity and they are just so yes, and so flattering.

yes. It's funny you say that because he was talking a lot SHE was certainly we discussed the dresses that she's done for me and they've been very at her word, minimalist yeah and um was was your but I want to talk you about fashion for a second with your mother's fashion style influential to you because I can tell you was to .

me your mother oh really but that's so interesting uh yes IT IT was my mother uh SHE look wonderful glares and clothing dress glamorously um and sometimes that made me feel uncomfortable but why I felt that he was a overdoing and anything grand overdo I mean, you were about a costume jewelry uh SHE which SHE had an old thing on all dressed one thing one dramatic thing to make a to to to turn around and and I didn't think that that worked and and uh but uh when there was something that was called the new look and the new look, I think came out the fifties when the the skirt, the big skirt, the pull skirts came out and the suits that had big shoulders and and long and had not like long jackets serve a john craford look, I was said he was called the new look and mother had some suits.

They were in the new look and I remember that we went over to to call her where my brother was and thanksgiving and my mother was dressed in the new look. And I remember my brother was thrilled, just said, look like a moth. And SHE did SHE look wonderful and in the cloth, and SHE SHE loved cloth.

SHE loved and love formal. That would keep in the, I think I told that, and SHE in in the guest room causes. So judie and I, my best friend, grow up. When we would dress up, we would go with, sneak in the class, we would put those clothes on, put her, her dresses on, and we tie them up, try to make them that.

And and what we did, and the mother one time had, I can remember what, whether they were heard dresses or they were somebody grown up dresses, but SHE hadn't cut down to for us. Oh, and guess what? What you hear them? Oh, why about you bring your mother's dress on? I was, yeah, great hanging thing.

And then we can make a pitten. And we thought, look perfect when we had arranged IT. But when I was made for us, I mean, that was like kill IT. Like your sister laun said one time when I took her, just see them, my teeth cut outs, he was ten years old and he is said, I can do that so the person we could wear that if we wanted to wear the things that were, you know, out there, out there.

It's so funny, because I have the same experience with A D, D, my grandmother who had called dd, your mom, because when I would stay with her SHE would what I loved about staying with her was that he would just let me go in her closet. And so I would spend hours in her closet trying on her shoes and her dresses and her jewelry and her purses. SHE had so many purses, and it's so funny because then I remember when he died, and they're all these clothes and they didn't have the same a lure as they had when I was little. But I remember thinking that he was just the glamour of the glam.

Yeah, SHE SHE had a of a lot of that quality about her, a lot of seen a .

lot of shine. Yeah, right. yeah. Mom, are there any pieces in your closet that you remember vividly as being fabulous that you loved? You know, looking back on clothes.

looking back on clothes.

Yeah.

I I tell what I love the puppy, the puppy. Look.

I knew you're gna say puchi yes.

I I have a two pigs sort the slacks in the， in the top and I had to at a dress that was a puggy like which I had red I was at my fifty birthday party had long slaves and and he was out of had and had to kind of A A line skirt and I had um if I can see a picture of uh IT had some so geometric designs on IT and uh, I I I love that. I I love that.

I love the pushy step that you were. I remember the pants suit. I believe IT was .

sleeves and I am, yes, exactly.

And by the way, if you have that now, IT would be still good.

Talk about timeless. So I wish .

you did have a money. Why don't you have IT? Well, I would wear that.

Try to predict what is going to look at in in forty years.

Put .

all in.

okay. Note to self. Get a castle .

for your clothes. yes.

Okay, mommy, well, listen, i'm going to go, but i'm going to call you later. And h, thanks for talking to me about your wing.

Well, I am so happy to talk to you about their waning or are about you and the other things. So so that's again. Okay, okay.

i'll see you next week.

Love you, ve you back.

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