this is bbc world news, the headlines... russia says it's hit a factory near the ukraine capital kyiv that produces anti—ship and air—defence missiles, and warns it will intensify its missile attacks. it's after the sinking of the flagship of russia's black sea fleet. ukraine claims its missiles destroyed the moskva, but the kremlin says it was damaged by a fire on board. more than 150 palestinians have been injured in clashes with israeli police at the al—aqsa mosque compound injerusalem. three police officers were hurt at the historic site. almost 400 are confirmed to have died in floods in kwazulu—natal province in south africa. authorities say it's the wost flooding in decades,

and are widening the search for those who are still missing. now on bbc news, an exclusive bbc 100 women interview with designer and fashion icon verg wang. vera wang is one of the fashion industry's true visionaries. she reinvented bridal ware and wedding dresses. celebrities have all worn her designs, her business empire continues to expand to home, fragrance, and even vodka. at 72, she is continuing to push boundaries, and in this special 100 women interview, we spoke about appealing to a new generation, conflict between sustainability and fashion, and the rise in anti—asian hate. welcome to 100 women,

vera wang. you are a woman who needs no introduction, fashion icon, entrepreneur. thank you for sitting down with us. thank you so much for having me. you now run a fast business empire, ready to wear, fragrance, alcoholic spirits. you really did make your name and were synonymous with the white dress. i wonder if you could tell us more about how you got your unlikely start in bridalfashion. my unlikely start is pretty fair and pretty true. i was the girl least expected to get married, and i waited till the ripe old age of a0. but in all honesty, i think my life, or i, was very much defined by what my career path was. when i finally got engaged, there weren't very many dresses

that i found were suitable for a ao—year—old bride, which perhaps today doesn't sound as old. but most of the brides i was shopping for dresses with were 25, and i said there's got to be something for someone my age. not only that, i came from vogue magazine, where i was a senior fashion editor, so my experience at vogue, with the entire world of fashion at my disposal, made me a little bit more, ithink, careful about what kind of dress i wanted to wear, more knowledgeable. and so there really wasn't anything out there that made me feel it was the right dress for me. and that's sort of what prompted this whole business. it's been almost, in a weird way, random, but nonetheless, amazing things have happened because of the way i live my life. today it's even harder for someone to start their own label. what challenges do you think come with that pressure,

that your label is very much based upon you? i think it's enormous. i think that's an incredibly valid question, when you are very much defined by who you are as a brand, and people know your brand for you, there are always issues that come up, related to, you know, the next generation and what are the plans for the company, what do you intend to do as a strategy going forward, and when you are that identifiable with the brand, and perhaps a bit of that kind of celebrity, it does add more pressure, there's no doubt about it. i think, for me, there have been good parts about it, and parts about it that have been frustrating. iam my brand, and i represent my brand, but i have an incredible group of people that support me behind my brand. you have to function together. it's impossible, unless.

it's a high—pressure industry, for sure, the reviews aren't always glowing, and you had yourfairshare, when there was the black bridal collection. i don't know if it wasn't glowing, i have always been a bit of a rebel. and i think that, i think that even as a rebel, ijust am a creator. and i think when you spend 30—plus years on wedding gowns, you've sort of got to change it up a little bit. ijust thought, you have to give brides a certain freedom, and a certain opportunity to shake it up a little bit. and girls, today, we encourage so much diversity, but women have always been diverse, it just hasn't been acknowledged, and it hasn't been accepted, and i like to think that

when i came to bridal, i wasn't a bridal designer, i was a fashion insider, who happened to design wedding dresses, so there were no rules for me, and ijust said, you know what? i want girls to have a choice, they want to wear a mini, or a bathing suit, it's not about that, it's about who they are. so i think diversity has always been part of my own nature as a woman, and i have lived my own life. once again, i lived the life that i espoused, so for me it's very natural, it's very organic and i hope it's very authentic. the reason i brought that up is, for a woman who prides herself on breaking the rules, how do you deal with failure? i think most of my life has been defined by failure. i mean, i was a very serious elite athlete, and i devoted 16 years of my life to trying to qualify in the olympics as a skater. and never quite made the cut.

so, for me, when i saw that my career was going nowhere, i really had a nervous breakdown. i was lost. and fashion was the thing that really took the place for me of skating, it really gave me all those components, you know, shows, and music, and editing, and design and creativity, and storytelling, all the things i loved about skating, i took with me into fashion. my fashion has not been limited to two—dimensional sketches, or evenjust draping, it's been about story, emotion, it's been about, perhaps, romance, in many ways, and, i think, a lot of daring. i think i've been fairly fearless. and thatjust sort of having been an athlete, and part of having been a woman, i think, who has lived my life, i think on my own terms, pretty much. you consider yourself

very much a feminist? i am a realfeminist, from way back when it was called feminism. i think it came very naturally for my generation. that woodstock was not, well, perhaps it's been interpreted as a fashion statement, at coachella, burning man, and some of these festivals, glastonbury, the real truth is that, in my era, it was a political statement as well, it wasn'tjust about styling yourself, it was about a sense that you were young, and we believed that we should have a say in what goes on in the world, and we bought a different view point to what had come before. so it wasn't raised purely from a fashion point of view,

it was embraced from an intellectual and emotional point of view. so, while i wasn't a hippy, per se, i very much understood, that people were questioning their lifestyles, and their life choices, and was this the only possibility? and that has been one of the little steps, or major steps, that has gotten us where we are today. bit by bit, step by step. and about fashion, i've always said, does fashion define lifestyle? in other words, do live a life as defined by how you dress? or, do you wear clothes that reflect the life you are living? and, for me, in the past, you dressed to suit your lifestyle, and what was dictated to you in the past. but, now, including the pandemic, and everything that has gone on in our world, i think that fashion is defined by how people live, it's the reverse.

you've been an insiderfor over 50 years, do you feel like there finally is a real thought of resetting, when it comes to diversity, and fashion, of different ethnicities, on the catwalk, in production, body shapes, all types of diversity? i think, women have always been diverse, that's the beauty of women. but i think now people accept so many different kinds of beauty. it's a global vision, rather than these thoughts of what beauty is, or how beauty is defined, even within the united states. and i think that is incredible. and it changes your eye as a creator, it changes... i'm constantly viewing women, even men, in a different context. i'll name a few icons, jackie kennedy, grace kelly, marilyn monroe, these

are various icons that brought something to fashion, and today, you do see variations on some of that. i mean you really do, but in a new way, in a more personal way. it's notjust your movie stars or first ladies, or princesses. it's kind of democratised now, and that's kind of great. one of the big issues that came up in this pandemic is that of sustainability. do you think the two can ever go hand—in—hand, fashion and sustainability, is that something you as a designer are thinking seriously about, now more than ever? i think we have always thought about it. i don't think it was ever a subject we could tackle as an industry, globally, because by its very demand for speed and delivery, that,

by its very definition, makes sustainability very difficult on every level, and then factor in what's going on with the planet, and what's going on with the techniques needed to develop fabric. now that we are working with new fabrics like plastics and moulded rubber and things like that, that we take them for granted, look at a sneaker, but it's going to take a lot of technology and a lot of investment to find ways to produce that kind of forward—thinking, and new way of lifestyle dressing, and yet not pollute our environment. so i don't think it's that simple a question. do we all wish we were more sustainable? absolutely. but the demands prior to the pandemic were unbelievable pressure on fashion industry. i mean, it was faster and faster, newer and newer.

i don't know how the two can go together. one has to be way more, i think, scientific, in a weird way, and way more thoughtful, and these changes are not going to happen within a day. you know, just flip a switch and suddenly silk doesn't involve a certain kind of water, and whether it is made in italy or france or china. these are global questions forfashion. have you reflected during the pandemic over what the future of fashion might look like? i think the future of fashion for me is exciting, because the future of the world and life is exciting. i mean, peoplejust went into outer space, and people who aren't even astronauts can go, civilians? i think it's really exciting, and it too will affect how we dress. once again, i'm going to say it.

lifestyle, possibilities are unlimited. boundaries, that will affect fashion. well, you have certainly lived through some amazing milestones, and i think what has been so interesting during this pandemic is people really getting to see a lot of your personality on social media. yes, a bit too much actually! and commenting on how great you look, i mean, a photo of you in a sports bra went viral, and i wasjust wondering how do you think about that, what you think about that attention? it was really shocking. i have never been to a gym and not seen women necessarily in sports attire, bicycle pants, short shorts, sports bras. so i didn't think that was so risque. i was just trying to show some barrettes in my hair that were sort of large, and i thought if i started getting very dressed up, you would never notice what was in my hair. so i was really a bit shocked.

i don't know, i have sort of pretty much been the same person for quite a long time. you can look at my history on the red carpet at the met. i just sort of was astonished, i thought people must be really bored! have nothing to do at home. i mean, it is nice that people thought that about me, it is very complimentary and i'm very grateful for that, but, you know, i've been asked, what are my secrets, all right, and i've got to be really honest. one of them is sleep. i value sleeping enormously. i value having a vodka cocktail at the end of the day, because it helps me to transition from a very intense work schedule to a bit of a private life. another, well, the real, the real answer to why i think i may be perceived as being

youthful is more about perhaps my energy, and i think it really has to do with my passion for what i do. work. i have been in fashion since i was 19 years old. not in front of the camera, behind it. i never thought about youth, i never thought about going way out of my way to preserve youth, in a fanatical, obsessive way. probably because i work with the most beautiful women in the world on a daily basis, and because of that, i am more envisioning them as my muses. and i think when you don't think about ageing in that way, maybe it is in a way better. maybe, i don't know, it is healthier, or maybe it's a way of dealing with ageing

that is productive, if that makes any sense. so i always said that, vodka cocktail, a lot of sleep, but work. work is the magic elixir here, it really is. it keeps your mind occupied, and when your mind is occupied, i think everything else follows. well, you are certainly changing the perspective of what it means to be 72, and how age influences... well, i don't think any woman is thrilled by that, in a way, but at the same time, i am kind of proud of it, because i think it speaks to other women, and i don't meanjust women, i think it speaks to men. ageism has always existed. i see it in a child, in my goddaughter, val.

i see that she wants to do more, she wants to be an adult. "why can't i go out with you guys for dinner, why can't i wear what i want to wear, why can't i?" because you can't, because mommy says no. i see what a lot of my godchildren are going through, and my own daughters. i see how hard it is, so there is ageism there. "you are not old enough, you are not old enough to be ceo, you are not experienced enough, you don't have enough knowledge". so there is ageism there. there is always an ageism somewhere, all the way along the way, and then as you get older, you have to find your own relevancy, and your own reason, and your own hopes, and your own happiness, and your own desire for how you are going to spend the rest of your life. these are not small issues. at every stage of the way, ageism today is only associated with people who are chronologically at a certain

age, a number. it is a number. but in many cases, i see people doing their very best work, because they have the confidence. whenever i feel like i'm lost before a collection, i tell myself this, even today. "well, i've been here before. this is not my first time at the rodeo". and i've come through. so i talk myself into the fact that i can do this. and i know that may sound odd at my stage of my career, but experience stands for a lot, too. knowledge, wisdom, patience, care. these things... you grow everyday in your life, you have to try and continue to grow, in one way or another, and that is why i find ageism so old—fashioned. you used your platform on social media to speak out about anti—asian hate.

we have seen a rise of this during the pandemic. how personal was this for you, and to be able to have a platform to speak out about this? well, first of all it was very shocking, because i began to hear stories that people that were just going grocery shopping were being knocked down on the ground, and their groceries stolen. and i just couldn't understand... well, i can't understand any kind of cruelty, whether it is on a personal level, or whether it is on a global level, when it is targeted at any group of people. i couldn't understand how you could hit a woman who is in her 80s with her groceries. i don't understand that. because she's asian? i grew up in an asian household in america, and we are asian, and although i like to think i'm extremely american, i also know that i bring that part of my asian

culture with me into everything i do. it is always present as a part of me. and i think we are encouraged to behave. we are encouraged to toe the line, to respect elders, to be kind, to work hard, to achieve, and to stand on our own two feet, and that is part of, you know, particularly chinese culture. i myself have always been a little bit of a rebel, just a bit, but nonetheless, i hope, respectful. and that is why it is particularly painful. i just feel that if you are trying to live your life, and be a good citizen, and make contributions as well, and bring your culture into that melting pot that is the united states, that you are not going to be punished for it, or hurt, or attacked. so it has been very troubling for me.

i think for that, and so many other reasons, women are now saying that they really feel there is a need for a reset after the pandemic, that things can't go back to the old way. do you think that is an important thing for you right now in your life? well, i had to reset, for so many reasons. i had employees who have worked for me faithfully for two decades or more, and with everything happening in the fashion industry, i tried to hold on for as long as i could, and when many stores, you know, retail, bricks and mortar, were shut down for eight months to a year, and offices were closed, some have not been reopened, and they are operating through zoom, it had to affect our industry. i see myself as a hamster in a wheel, or the treadmill is speeding up and i can't keep up, and i think the pandemic

allowed me time to think. the pandemic made us all slow down. it forced us to confront the speed at which we were functioning. it forced us to confront our own value system, our own ambitions, life and death, family, politics, and we now see we are all vulnerable to the exact same things. and hopefully, the sooner we can all work together and help each other and try to save, in an obvious sense, the planet, but in a more intellectual and essential way, our lives, i think the better. vera wang, thank you very much for having this discussion with 100 women. i am just so honoured to have been asked. thank you.

hello. for many of us, the weather throughout the easter period is actually going to be very decent indeed with warm sunny spells. today being the warmest day of the next few. but this headline definitely doesn't tell the whole story. in fact, many western parts of the uk are often cloudy, especially around coastal areas and that's because there is a weather system pretty much right on top of the british isles, even giving some spits and spots of rain, those murky, drizzly conditions around coasts. only 15 in plymouth whereas inland it's in excess of 20 celsius. look how cool it is on the north sea coasts, in aberdeen. in the north—west of the uk, i think thick cloud and a few showers through today and again low cloud around these western coasts,

both through today, tonight and into tomorrow. mild, relatively overnight, typically around six, seven, 8 degrees, maybe cold spots falling to 4 degrees where the sky is clear overnight in east anglia. and tomorrow we do it all over again. so western areas at times will be cloudy but the vast majority of us are in for some warm spells of sunshine, so if you're stuck underneath the cloud today and tomorrow you are among the few. many of us are enjoying the fine weather. let's have a look at the forecast as we head into sunday. there is a bit of a breakdown in the weather happening. you can see the blue here, that's rain. a weather front moves across ireland, that means we are in for some wet weather in northern ireland and some western parts of england, wales and scotland. here's the forecast, easter sunday, outbreaks of rain reaching at least the west of northern ireland. eventually probably reaching western scotland. maybe nudging into pembrokeshire, possibly cornwall, but look at that,

the bulk of the uk is in fact enjoying a relatively warm and sunny sunday. then on monday i think most of that rain will have fizzled out but more cloud and rain spreads into the north—west, so breezy conditions here and certainly i think some rain or at least showers there in western parts of scotland. again, the bulk of the uk enjoying sunshine. so a little bit of a mixed bag.

this is bbc news. welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. our top stories: russia resumes missile attacks near the ukrainian capital kyiv and claims to have targeted a factory making anti—ship missiles. it follows ukraine's claim that its missiles hit a russian flagship, which sank yesterday. ukraine says not all of the 500 crew were successfully rescued. at least 150 people are injured in clashes with israeli police injerusalem's al—aqsa mosque compound. it's hoped new research, mapping the genetic code of brain tumours, could lead to more accurate diagnoses and potentially better treatments.