Skating clearly has a place in Vera’s heart \u2014 “It\u2019s a very special sport,” she says \u2014 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. <\/p>\n
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\u2019t about her, it was about him \u2014 understanding how his body moves and his particular balance of artistry and athleticism.<\/p>\n
“You wouldn\u2019t want someone to lose Olympic gold because their sleeve ripped off,” Wang says.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
“This is more pressure than an Oscar dress in a strange way,” she says.<\/p>\n
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.”<\/p>\n
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\u2019s are her own designs. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“It’s a bit retro to go that simple. It was a statement of confidence. Dresses had gotten so ornate.” <\/p>\n
The midnight-sky blue combo that Shizuka Arakawa of Japan wore in Turin, Italy, in 2006 “isn\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n
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.”<\/p>\n
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 \u2014 she is for all her outfits.<\/p>\n
Even better than the blue one, Wang says, was the red number with a sunburst-yellow hemline. “That dress was very beautiful.” <\/p>\n
Fore more on Vera Wang’s opinion read it here!<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Skating clearly has a place in Vera’s heart \u2014 “It\u2019s a very special sport,” she says \u2014 and she keeps<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"Skating clearly has a place in Vera’s heart \u2014 “It\u2019s a very special sport,” she says \u2014 and she keeps","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["News"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":148,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":3,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"News<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}