Vera Wang: Defining Your Own Pace

Yewon Jo

April 4, 2026

It is often said that there are certain decided stages in life. Your trajectory of the rest of your days on Earth is decided by what you do in the first twenty or so. This is a perception that plagues the basic expectations and standards of society towards teens and youth, discouraging them when they believe they have started chasing their dreams “too late”. However, this is far from the case, and there is a female figure that completely debunks this prevalent prejudice: Vera Wang.

Vera Wang is a highly acclaimed, groundbreaking fashion designer, best known for her sweeping changes on the bridal industry and her lavish yet elegant dressings of celebrities. It is important to note that she was not on this path as long as she could remember, starting to design when she was a teen. She had her own detours, her own trials and errors.

Wang was actually a figure skater before ever even turning to design, training for the Olympics and even competing in the United States National Championships. However, when her professional career didn’t work out, Wang had no choice but to pivot. She was anxious and worried about how her life and her career would turn out, but she decided to pursue a path that she had been passionate about along with skating: fashion.

Wang started working at Vogue as an editor in her twenties, and honed her skills for years - skills that she would use later on when she launched her own fashion brand. Surprisingly, that time did not come until much later than one would think.

In 1990, at age 40, Vera Wang launched her first bridal boutique in New York City. Her designs most differed from conventional bridal dresses in the fact that it promoted simplicity yet aimed to preserve individuality and elegance. She brought innovation to an industry that had long been too accustomed to ever-similar flares and frills, changing the focus from tradition to female personality. She experimented with various colors, fabrics, and shapes of gowns - something that no one had ever thought of doing before. By doing so, she completely debunked bridal norms and innovated what wedding dresses meant for women. Instead of causing discomfort and pain to achieve beauty, Wang expressed that she promoted comfort and ease to enhance natural feminine beauty, stating “I believe a woman is most beautiful when she is natural”.

After her innovation in the bridal industry and also her designing costumes for famous olympic figure skaters, Vera Wang launched her own brand that brought her designs to a larger audience. By building her own fashion empire, Wang collected numerous accolades and recognitions along the way, and solidified her position as a timeless, sophisticated fashion icon. She is known to have completely broken the boundaries of how women could express themselves through clothing that is traditionally fixed in design through her expressive and distinct style.

Vera Wang leaves us with a message that it is never too late to start anything that you are passionate about. She started her own fashion brand halfway into her life, yet she still managed to have a lasting influence: not just on fashion as a whole, but specifically on other women as well. She inspires countless other women with her story, emphasizing the message that only you can decide your pace in life, your pace in success. Modern society often looks down on those who have to take detours, those who do not have things figured out on the first try. It promotes perfection, flawless execution, and endless achievement - making people feel like just another wheel in a giant, unrelenting machine. Vera Wang shows us that it is okay to break free from those bounds of excessive perfectionism - that you can do whatever you want to do, when you want to do it. Her story tells us not to be afraid to try again, and be bold in doing so - because when you realize you define your own success, you become fearless in your pursuit of it.