We were so poor that my mother would often leave me in a foster home until she could raise enough money to rent rooms for us.

If your ceiling is falling down, don't you call someone in? I apply the same principle to myself.

The minute we don't finance the arts, the accountants, attorneys and politicians keep taking the cream of money off the top and it doesn't trickle down unless all of society understands that we must support the arts, whether it's ballet, opera, fashion. Fashion is like opera, is like ballet, is like theatre. It's a visual theatre.

As a model, I didn't have an identity; I was a chameleon, a silent actress. I was an amorphous thing. I wasn't full of personality, I was full of solitude and solemnity. I wasn't a cover-girl type.

Fashion is more about taste than money - you have to understand your body and tailor clothes to your needs; it's all about the fit. I do the alterations myself - I'm quite a seamstress - it's the influence of my Hungarian mother.

We were so poor that my mother would often leave me in a foster home until she could raise enough money to rent rooms for us.

I didn't marry to have children. I married to have a relationship, and I was blessed with one child. I was an only child, too - my mother was smarter than most women today; she just had me.