The Fashion Designer Behind Athleisure Is Still the Best at Making It

As an ­undergraduate intern at Teen Vogue, Alexander Wang was charged with calling up top fashion houses and asking to borrow clothes for photo shoots. He was frequently rebuffed: “That audience doesn’t understand this level of fashion!” the 33-year-old clothing designer says he heard over and over again.

Wang knew better. Relying on a gut sense honed by observing his precociously styled classmates at the Drew School in San Francisco and working in boutiques and ­department stores, he took a leave of absence from Parsons School of Design in 2005 to start Alexander Wang Inc. His mother served as chairman, and his sister-in-law was the chief executive officer. “We were profitable from Day One,” he says. Now the company says it takes in $150 million in annual revenue and that sales are growing at a ­double-digit rate.