You know who a role model for me is? George Ballanchine

Remember this: No one is looking at your imperfections; they're all too busy worrying about their own.

The last thing I want to become is one of those talking heads where everything is satiny smooth and you know what the next question is going to be

You can't be melancholy in fashion because people don't respond to it.

Sometimes I'm really dressed up, and it really turns me on

To me, you can't have style without being inspired. When I design a collection, I am inspired by so many things. The color of a flower. The shape of a butterly's wing. The juxtaposition of an old tenement building next to a shiny new skyscraper.

Even though I grew up as a Sephardic Jew in Brooklyn where we ate Syrian food and went to temple, it was still America.