But the customer is the final, final filter. What survives the whole process is what people wear. I'm not interested in making clothes that end up in some dusty museum.

When you design a dress you ask yourself, would woman like it or no. It's much more of a creative process, not a research or trying to make somethings that sells or appeals. I hope that it will appeal to somebody, but it isn't what drives me.

Awkwardness gives me great comfort. I've never been cool, but I've felt cool. I've been in the cool place, but I wasn't really cool - I was trying to pass for hip or cool. It's the awkwardness that's nice.

When I was starting out, it seemed like there were so many girls who were known by their first names, who were unique, who all had idiosyncrasies and characteristics that made them individual. Those girls stuck around; you'd work with them season after season. But now it's completely different.

I always wanted to be a fashion designer so I just have to remember that as long as I'm doing it I'm living the dream.

I think it's an old fashioned notion that fashion needs to be exclusive to be fashionable.

I love to design for women, it's really open and very free. I always think of my friends. I think of both fictitious characters, real people from the past and the present. I am not a woman, but I find women so beautiful and so fascinating.