Vera Wang is one of the most successful fashion designers on the planet.

At age 73, she has been designing gowns for Hollywood's elite and wedding dresses for anyone with a sizeable wallet for over three decades now.

She's someone who posts regularly on social media, loves to experiment with fashion and has plenty of celebrity friends including Vogue'sAnna Wintour, Ariana Grande, Michael Kors and Zendaya.

But there's so much to Wang that remains mysterious – her family life, her childhood, her relationships and more. She has spoken briefly on each of these things from time to time, ever so slightly lifting the lid on her life.

Watch fashion 'crimes'. Fesival chaps. Post continues below.

Here's everything we know about the woman behind the wedding dress empire.

Vera Wang's childhood.

Wang was born in 1949 in New York City. The daughter of a Chinese-born business tycoon and a mother who regularly shopped at the couture shows in Paris, Wang's childhood was financially privileged to say the least.

Raised on the Upper East Side – a part of New York best known for itsGossip Girlcharacterisation – Wang initially had dreams of becoming an Olympic figure skater. And she was very good at it. She reflected on her love for skating with Seventeen Magazine, saying the discipline it taught her was a skill she used later on in life.

"I thought nothing of waking up at four in the morning and rushing to the rink just to have 10 minutes longer on the ice than my competitors," she said. "It takes tremendous will to compete in any athletic endeavour, so it meant going to bed early and getting my homework done in advance. I had to sacrifice things, like a social life, to be a skater at 15. But I loved skating so much that it was worth everything to me."

But unfortunately for Wang, a career in figure skating wasn't meant to be. After school, she went to Sarah Lawrence College where she studied art history, spending her summers working at Yves Saint Laurent. She wanted to go to design school, but at the time her father wouldn't pay for her tuition.

"He thought the chances of me making it as a designer were, like, less than zero. He said, 'Listen, I paid for five years of undergraduate. How about law school or business school? Go to Yale Law.' I said nope. And then, I think just to make me really aggravated, he said, 'I'm not paying for anything else'," she said to New York Magazine.

Vera Wang's incredible career.

Lucky for Wang, she managed to get a job as a sittings assistant (styling editorial shoots) withVoguesoon after her row with her dad.

She stayed with the magazine for years, working her way up the "fashion food chain" to becoming an editor.

Reflecting on this time in her life, Wang said to Harpers Bazaar: "It's a calling. Like being a musician. I mean, the hours of practice, the loneliness, the dedication. It was a very obsessive job for me," she explains. "My father didn't get it."

But it was the perfect place for Wang at that point of her career – teaching her the fashion fundamentals, the business behind it and developing her passion for clothes.

By 1989, Wang was working as a design director at Ralph Lauren. And then at age 40, Wang decided to open a New York bridal shop and debut her own line of gowns.

And it's gone tenfold from there: fashion lines and collections, fragrances, stationery, lingerie, eyewear, shoes, homewares – you name it. Today, there are Vera Wang boutiques in America, London, China, Tokyo and Sydney.

As the sole owner of her business, Forbes has reported that Wang's net worth is around US$500 million.

"For me, I have to be very honest, it's really a daily struggle. I don't have a well-balanced, well-rounded life," she said to CNBC recently. "I think work has been my whole life and it's kept me honestly relevant, fascinated, passionate, frightened, worried and stressed. But [my career] has enabled me to really have a very full life.

"[Entrepreneurship] is not for everyone. But if you really love something, whatever it is, that is a big start. If you don't love it, you will not make it through. Things can get really tough and decisions will be very hard."