Fashion designer Vera Wang talks shop

Vera Wang, perhaps best known for her wedding dress designs, spoke less about her fairy tale bridal collections and more about the ins and outs of running a business in a talk at Guild Hall in East Hampton Saturday morning.

Samples of Ms. Wang’s designs, along with a collage of Wyandanch Lane in Southampton by her husband, Arthur Becker, are on display at Guild Hall until October 12. The exhibit, “The Art of Fashion in the Hamptons,” also features work by Tory Burch, Betsey Johnson, Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, and Nicole Miller.

Ms. Wang explained that the East End, where she owns a home, is her place to relax. And that kind of relaxation, she said, in turn fuels how she works.

“I work in an organic manner,” Ms. Wang said, explaining that she rarely sits and sketches a design for her collection. “I play with fabric, and I look at it.”

For example, for her spring 2010 collection, Ms. Wang bought lots and lots of brightly-colored, Oriental-inspired fabric. Although she had invested a significant amount of money in about 80 to 90 fabrics, she found that she could sew only three or four of them. After three months of trying to make the expensive 80 to 90 fabrics into a runway-worthy collection, the designer threw out the bulk of it two weeks before the show.

“Business-wise, it felt irresponsible,” said Ms. Wang, who started her own label in 1990 after working for Vogue and Ralph Lauren. But, in the end, she explained that it was the right thing to do for her collection.

As it turned out, many fashion critics and magazines praised the collection, which featured predominantly black pieces, although some had a floral print. Pamela Fiori, editor-in-chief of Town & Country magazine who interviewed Ms. Wang on stage, said that she loved the designer’s collection, especially the way it was punctuated with Ms. Wang’s signature custom jewelry.

“It’s big jewelry, but it’s light, fun and fanciful,” Ms. Fiori said.

One woman in the audience, who has an apartment near Filene’s Basement in Manhattan, asked Ms. Wang why her fashions never make it to that particular discount store. Ms. Wang explained that her company is small enough that there are rarely extras.

Ms. Wang added that she has a clothing line, called Simply Vera, at Kohl’s, offered at a much more affordable price point than her runway collections.