Go to: Fashion designer Vera Wang’s dresses are prized worldwide for their simple elegance and sophistication. The Chinese-American native New Yorker discovered her love for fashion design while she attended Sorbonne University in Paris, and went on to be a fashion editor at Vogue magazine, where she worked for more than a decade. After working as the design director for women’s accessories for Ralph Lauren, she established her own namesake company in 1990.