Some designers are so airy-fairy people can't connect with them. I hope people can relate to me, to a normal person who just happens to be a fashion designer, that people can take me as they find me. It's not the designer's job to care about what people think. Whatever else I've done, I've never tried to be something that I'm not.

It's the ugly things I notice more, because other people tend to ignore the ugly things.

I come from a different era and I design clothes for our era. I think of people I want to dress when I design.

I'm 40 now, but I want this to be a company that lives way beyond me, and I believe that customers are more important to making that happen than press. When I'm dead, hopefully this house will still be going. On a spaceship. Hopping up and down above earth.

I can't get sucked into that celebrity thing, because I think it's just crass.

People find my things sometimes aggressive. But I don't see it as aggressive. I see it as romantic, dealing with a dark side of personality.

I think there is beauty in everything.