THE WANG FACTOR
NOT so long ago, wedding dresses were so big and bouffant they looked like they belonged on a dessert trolley. Brides the world over have a lot to thank Vera Wang for – it’s largely because of her that they don’t have to look like puffed-up meringues anymore.
“Vera has changed our idea of what constitutes a wedding dress,” US Vogue editor Anna Wintour wrote earlier this year in a piece in which she sang the American design guru’s praises. “It’s a change so great, so generation-spanning, that I’m sometimes not sure that even she realises just how much she’s achieved.”
Wintour is right. Few designers leave a lasting legacy but Vera will. It’s not that she has annihilated froth but that she’s streamlined it. And in this she’s forged not just an aesthetic consensus, but a political one. When President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, got married, she wore Wang. Ditto Bill Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea.
What’s more, millions of women who can’t afford to buy the real thing have still, whether they realise it or not, worn Wang – albeit ripped off by another label.
And then there are the red-carpet moments, the most notable being actress Michelle Williams’ yellow gown at the 2006 Oscars, which ranks among the all-time awards-ceremony greats.
“Bridal is every woman’s red carpet,” notes Vera, who launched her bridal business in the
