When you're older, no matter how good your humor is you don't always feel perky and peppy. But if you sit home all day and brood about it, it gets worse.

My mother gave me very good advice years ago. I grew up in the Great Depression and she always told me to get a good little basic black dress - well-cut, well-made, good fabric - and it could take me through everything. I could go to the office in the morning and stay out all day in the same dress. Just by changing accessories, because they are so transformative, you can make six different outfits. I find that very useful. My mother worshipped at the altar of accessories and I'm an accessory freak, as everybody knows. That, I got from my mother.

When you go to a nice restaurant, you want to be relaxed and have a drink and everything, you want to look at people who look well. You don't want to look at some slob with an open shirt and a hairy chest. At least I don't.

To me there are lots more important things in the world than just having the right shoes!

I do have a dominant shopping gene but, unlike a reasonable person, I never plan for what I need each season. I enjoy the thrill of the hunt, the discovery and the endless search. In another creation I was, perhaps, a hunter/gatherer. After all these years, I’ve learned that it’s not the end result or finished product but the process I most enjoy. If my experimenting, searching and juxtaposing turns into an exciting outfit well, it’s just a big fat bonus!

It's not easy to know who you are and it's very painful and takes a lot of time and that is why a lot of people don't want to put in the effort.

I think fashion today is horrible. Just open your eyes and look! What's good about it? There's no originality. Here and there, there is, but in general, en masse, there's very little creativity and very little originality. It's kind of boring. Everybody looks alike. Everybody seems to strive to look alike.