It’s hard to juggle being a businessperson with being a creative person. You have to organize yourself – PR needs me for PR, and the licensing division needs me for licensing, the bridal people need me for bridal.
I see myself as a true modernist. Even when I do a traditional gown, I give it a modern twist. I go to the past for research. I need to know what came before so I can break the rules.
When I decided to get married at 40, I couldn’t find a dress with the modernity or sophistication I wanted. That’s when I saw the opportunity for a wedding gown business.
It takes tremendous will to compete in any athletic endeavor, so it meant going to bed early and getting my homework done in advance. I had to sacrifice things, like a social life, to be a skater at 15. But I loved skating so much that it was worth everything to me.
I brought color to bridal. There was one whole season of blush. If you think about the bareness, the illusion (fabric), the corsets that I did in bridal, they were trends in ready-to-wear, too.
I started at the very highest level so the upper end is something I know very well. I know it instinctively. But all the years I was designing, it frustrated me that I could reach so few women.
I was trying to manage school and training for the Olympics and ended up not doing well at either. That was a big lesson in my life. My mother expected both.
A bride should look at everything she possibly can…just so she can experiment and see what makes her really feel beautiful or glamorous or classical or whatever she desires to be on that particular day.
