[Source: BBC]

From making history as Vogue’s youngest-ever fashion editor to creating a gown fit for a Kennedy wedding – which would end up covered in grass stains – Vera Wang chronicles her career’s surprising trajectory and shares some of her hard-won lessons as a woman at the top of her field.

Vera Wang may be best known for crafting some of the most memorable wedding gowns of all time. Mariah Carey, Victoria Beckham, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alicia Keys are just a few of the women who have chosen the designer for their big days.

Less known is the fact that design wasn’t her first foray into the fashion world… or even her second.

Speaking to BBC special correspondent Katty Kay, on her sit-down series Influential, Wang shares her long journey, from working at US Vogue to having her own creations grace those same pages.

Speaking to Kay, Wang shares that – like a true drama – her life and career have been a series of acts, and that each act has included the ever-present spectre of time looming over her.

As a teenager, the designer wanted to be an Olympic figure skater, but failed to make the cut. After that, she landed a position as fashion editor at Vogue right after graduating from Sarah Lawrence College, New York, making history in the process at the age of 23.

“I was the youngest, probably, woman to ever be given the title of editor. Probably to this day,” Wang says.

Her time at the magazine spanned 17 years, but like her time on the ice, Wang says that her skills didn’t always match her passion.

She didn’t qualify for the 1968 Olympic Games in Grenoble and she never rose to the title of editor-in-chief.

“Some of the things I have adored the most, and by that, I mean passionately loved, are not fields I necessarily succeeded at,” she says.

It wasn’t until she was 40 years old, with Vogue and a position at Ralph Lauren behind her, that she launched her namesake fashion label.

Bridal collections were just the beginning. Eventually, her brand would expand to include ready-to-wear, shoes, sunglasses, fine jewellery, home goods and even her own prosecco.

Becoming too old for ice skating and the glossy world of magazines made Wang reassess what her next steps could be, even before she had the idea of putting her name on anything, much less everything.

“Women were considered transparent at a certain age, even in terms of their career,” Wang says.

“You will age out of a career. I do not just mean modeling, I do not just mean being an editor,” she adds, explaining to Kay that it takes a certain grit to outlast these supposed expiration dates.

“It is not about age, it is about style. And that is always how I felt. I have never not felt that way.”

Stream the best of Fiji on VITI+. Anytime. Anywhere.