Alexander Wang Woos Reporter By Wearing Shirt Backwards

by Verena von Pfetten | 2:00 pm, March 22nd, 2011

Alexander Wang may no longer be fashion’s only golden child — he now has to share the spotlight with his bestie Joseph Altuzarra, among others — but he still knows how to charm the pants off a reporter during interviews.

Take, for example, his interaction with the Telegraph’s Kate Finnigan.

Some minutes into our interview he realises his T-shirt is on back-to-front, so, there and then, he removes the sweater, taking his arms out of the grey silk-cotton T-shirt – with its carefully selected ‘slightly worn-in’ slub – and turns the garment round the right way. Casual but startlingly confident, it’s a gesture that’s 100 per cent Alexander Wang.

How, exactly, does one casually but confidently do such a thing? Only Alexander Wang knows.

Clearly we kid, but Wang does share some nice anecdotes about his upbringing and his current fancy-schmancy lifestyle.

‘But I think with more success it’s more important that you do stay grounded and that you surround yourself with people who,’ he giggles, ‘keep it real. And yes, y’know, my apartment is a little nicer now and I have a car and I don’t have to take the subway all the time, but I’m still the same person. That’s always been our idea with the clothes. There’s a certain sense of fantasy but at the same time it feels very, very grounded.’

Then again, Wang’s story isn’t exactly a rags to riches tale. He’s been besties with Victoria Traina, daughter of bajillionaire author and shoe obsessive Danielle Steele, since high school (they both went to the same Bay-area boarding school) during which he lived in his own apartment in a building his parents owned. (The rags to riches bit happened before he was born: his parents emigrated to Taiwan with his two older siblings, and his mother started out as a dishwasher before founding a plastics manufacturing business with her husband which they moved to China almost twenty years ago. Clearly a good business decision. Anyway!) Back to Traina — she’s been a source of inspiration to him ever since she wowed him with her casual attitude towards very expensive things.

‘[Victoria] would come into class in some designer shoes that she’d cut the ankle straps off. And I’d be like, “Wow, you just spent however much money on those…’ he remembers. ‘She treated everything in this very non-precious way. They would have racks of clothes brought from the stores to their house. And they’d be like, “Oh yeah, Prada just sent over their new collection…”‘

We’ll refrain from pointing out that the main reason Traina was able to treat precious things so non-preciously involves having an unlimited amount of cash with which to purchase more precious things, but that really doesn’t do much for Wang’s inspiration. And now he makes clothes we love (and can sometimes afford), so… let’s move on to the bit where Wang’s brother rides a motorcycle through a Ritz-Carlton.

He hosted his first fashion show at [his brother's] wedding when he was 15, showing 35 outfits he’d designed for Aimie, [his sister-in-law]. Wasn’t he worried about upstaging the bride and groom? ‘Ha-ha-ha! No, because my brother had a lot of tricks up his sleeve! He somehow got the Ritz-Carlton to let him bring his Harley-Davidson motorbike into the lobby and down the stairs, then he rode it into the ballroom.’

Wang’s clothing may be considered contemporary, but we’ll be darned if his life isn’t aspirational.

Alexander Wang on Building his Fashionable Family Empire [Telegraph]