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HER TRAINING as a competitive figure skater, beginning when she was just 6 years old, left an indelible impression on Vera Wang. There were the adolescent years of intensive routines and ballet lessons to improve her posture, all the while juggling courses at the elite Chapin School. Yet ultimately failing to make the United States Olympics team, she has often said, is what drove her to succeed elsewhere in life.
But those years also took a toll on her psyche, in anxiety that has been manifested, she believes, in periods of depression throughout her life, which she has discussed only privately with friends. As she prepared to accept a lifetime achievement award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America next month, Ms. Wang said in an interview, she decided it was time to talk about the effects of anxiety on young people, and to make that a signature issue.
Next week, Ms. Wang and the Vogue editor Anna Wintour plan to hold a dinner to introduce potential donors to the Youth Anxiety Center, a new facility under the umbrella of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital founded to research potential treatments and provide training and clinical service. The center is being developed by Dr. David Shaffer, a child psychiatrist who is also Ms. Wintour’s former husband, and a team of doctors.
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