How Wang changed weddings
Vera Wang revolutionized the biggest day of many women’s lives, said Anna Murphy in
The Times (U.K.). Before the launch of Wang’s bridal business, in 1990, wedding dresses were notoriously big and poufy. Wang launched her company after designing her own dress and realizing the appeal of a narrower silhouette. She’s since outfitted brides like Chelsea Clinton, Ivanka Trump, Alicia Keys, and Kim Kardashian, but ordinary people who can’t afford $25,000 bespoke gowns still wear dresses influenced by her designs. “Bridal is every woman’s red carpet,” she says. Prior to founding her company, Wang, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, worked for Ralph Lauren and Yves Saint Laurent and assisted iconic photographers like Irving Penn and Richard Avedon at Vogue. She experienced the wrath of editors like Polly Mellen, who sent Wang home to change on the day of her first shoot. “She was so cruel,” says Wang, 70. “So rough. I’ve said that to her face.” Why does the industry foster such viciousness? “There are very few businesses with a schedule in which you have to be creative,” Wang says. After every demeaning insult, she would cry to her father, who’d reply, “If you want to be in fashion, be in fashion.”
Allen’s pariah status
Woody Allen no longer is known for his work as a comedian and director, said Hadley Freeman in The Guardian (U.K.). Instead, he’s been defined by his marriage to his former partner’s adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, and allegations that he molested his daughter, Dylan Farrow, in 1992. Allen says Dylan and her brother, the investigative journalist Ronan Farrow, were coached to hate him by their mother, Mia Farrow, after she discovered his affair with Soon-Yi. Allen was never charged and emphatically maintains his innocence, but knows he’s a pariah nonetheless. “I assume that for the rest of my life a large number of people will think I was a predator,” says Allen, 84. “Anything I say sounds self-serving and defensive, so it’s best if I just go my way and work.” Last year he released his 48th film, but the star, Timothée Chalamet, expressed regret for taking the role, as have former stars of Allen’s films such as Greta Gerwig, Colin Firth, and Mira Sorvino. “It’s silly,” Allen says. “Actors latch on to some self-serving, public, safe position. Who in the world is not against child molestation?” Denouncing me, he adds, “became the fashionable thing to do, like everybody suddenly eating kale.” He doesn’t bother to sue when publications group him with #MeToo monsters who’ve been convicted of crimes. “It doesn’t pay to sue,” he says. “And do I really care?”