Skating clearly has a place in Vera’s heart — “It’s a very

Skating clearly has a place in Vera’s heart — “It’s a very special sport,” she says — and she keeps a hand in it by designing costumes for some top contenders, including Evan Lysacek, a favorite to medal in men’s figure skating in Vancouver, as well as previous Olympians Nancy Kerrigan and Michelle Kwan.

Wang got back on the ice for the first time in years this past fall with Lysacek and enjoyed it, although she’s a little more nervous about injuries as a 60-year-old mother and business leader than she was as a teenager. But the session wasn’t about her, it was about him — understanding how his body moves and his particular balance of artistry and athleticism.

“You wouldn’t want someone to lose Olympic gold because their sleeve ripped off,” Wang says.

Other considerations: The outfit has to sparkle like evening wear but function like workout gear; it has to stand up to the considerable wind generated by skaters’ speed; and it must be show-stopping from every angle, unlike a Hollywood-starlet gown that is usually photographed straight from the front or back.

“This is more pressure than an Oscar dress in a strange way,” she says.

The costume also has to complement the music. “I have to have the music for a skating costume,” she says, “and that’s not the way I normally work.”

Wang, who has a spot in the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame thanks to her costumes, shares some thoughts on some outfits from Olympics past. Only Kerrigan’s are her own designs.

Michelle Kwan

Michelle Kwan made a gutsy move in 1998 in Nagano, Japan, by wearing a periwinkle stretch-velvet dress, Wang says. It was a look reminiscent of Dorothy Hamill.

“It’s a bit retro to go that simple. It was a statement of confidence. Dresses had gotten so ornate.”

Shizuka Arakawa

The midnight-sky blue combo that Shizuka Arakawa of Japan wore in Turin, Italy, in 2006 “isn’t my taste,” Wang says. It’s a little too showy, but it did make Arakawa look like a risk-taker, which might have been the primary intention all along.

Sasha Cohen

American Sasha Cohen is a chameleon when it comes to her costumes, the designer says. “You never know what Sasha is up to. … One minute she’s Carmen, the next minute she’s Gisele.”

Wang says Cohen was probably intimately involved in the creation of the ombre-blue dress covered with sequins worn in Salt Lake City in 2002 — she is for all her outfits.

Even better than the blue one, Wang says, was the red number with a sunburst-yellow hemline. “That dress was very beautiful.”

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