– Vera Wang chronicles her career's surpris-ing trajectory and shares some of her hard-won lessons as a woman at the top of her field. Vera Wang may be best known for crafting some of the most memorable wedding gowns of all time. Mariah Carey, Victoria Beckham, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alicia Keys are just a few of the women who have chosen the designer for their big days. Less known is the fact that design wasn't her first foray into the fashion world… or even her second. Speaking to BBC special correspondent Katty Kay, on her sit-down series Influential, Wang shares her long journey, from working at US Vogue to having her own creations grace those same pages.

Speaking to Kay, Wang shares that – like a true drama – her life and career have been a series of acts, and that each act has included the ever-present spectre of time looming over her. As a teenager, the designer wanted to be an Olympic figure skater, but failed to make the cut. After that, she landed a position as fashion editor at Vogue right after graduating from Sarah Lawrence College, New York, making history in the process at the age of 23. "I was the youngest, probably, woman to ever be given the title of editor. Probably to this day," Wang says.

Her time at the magazine spanned 17 years, but like her time on the ice, Wang says that her skills didn't always match her passion. She didn't qualify for the 1968 Olympic Games in Grenoble and she never rose to the title of editor-in-chief. "Some of the things I have adored the most, and by that, I mean passionately loved, are not fields I necessarily succeeded at," she says.