Since I was a child, my whole life has revolved around music. It's often while listening to a song that ideas for my fashion collections formed.

My parents offered me my first camera for my birthday and I developed an exclusive passion for it over the years. Since I was not the most social kid on the block, the camera helped me to express myself, invent my own language - something like a secret garden. I decided early on I would not write in a diary but take silent photographs instead.

I love California. It has such a strong contribution to the history of culture, and popular culture. For better and worse, of course. Even the worst can be interesting to some degree sometimes for somebody creative.

Just like zillions of children, album covers educated and informed me, and certainly did I later transpose organically, rather than by intent, those principles both in fashion design and photography.

Together with the rise of the internet, September 11 and its aftermath has changed most of our lives.

I like the idea of paradox, between the authentic fabrics and sophisticated shapes and between masculine and feminine. I'm not so much for sportswear. I think it's over.

Hedi was and is still misspelled 'Heidi' and my perception of genders ended up slightly out of focus from an early age.