All those years of skating and dancing have carried over. I can’t design anything without thinking of how a woman’s body will look and move when she’s wearing it.
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.
When brides ask me, “What’s the best advice you can give me on my wedding day?” I always have the same answer: “Be yourself.” Someone’s marrying you, they love you for who you are, and they don’t want you to be someone else.
One thing about skating that I don’t think people focus on enough is the music factor. The music is a huge component of figure skating. It can dictate not only the choreography but the emotion. If it’s not the right music it can ruin a performance.
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 love sportswear in my own weird way. Fashion is such a personal journey for me. I’m much more of a girl that’s a T-shirt, legging, layering kind of thing, and outerwear.
I do think I know more about clothes than any 500 designers, because there’s nothing like wearing them. You buy them, you study them, and you start to understand how they’re crafted.
I wanted to breathe new life into the timeless trend of past, present and future. These unique designs celebrate the bride and groom’s passage through their new life together.
It’s for all the women who embrace my aesthetic, but can’t afford a Vera Wang dress. If women can get anything out of it – a little bit of me or a lot of me, that’s what’s important.
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.
We got a lot of letters of people who didn’t like them, like my own family who thought they were unnecessary and unpleasant and taking advantage of women in a sad situation – I never saw that. And I think that sometimes, you have to take a risk.
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 hate phones. All businesses are personal businesses, and I always try my best to get back to people, but sometimes the barrage of calls is so enormous that if I just answered calls I would do nothing else.
