I want to make clothes that are beautiful of course, but also clothes that are interesting and considered and intelligent and not out of place.

In America many things that are interesting are seen as odd.

If I have done anything, it is to make ugly appealing. In fact, most of my work is concerned with destroying—or at least deconstructing—conventional ideas of beauty, of the generic appeal of the beautiful, glamorous, bourgeois woman. Fashion fosters clichés of beauty, but I want to tear them apart.

Fashion is instant language.

I try to make women feel more powerful without losing their femininity.

I suppose I felt guilty not to be doing something more important, more political. So in a way I am trying to use the company for these other activities.

Seduction is a matter of feelings and people opening themselves. I don't think it's something tricky - it's being human. And everybody is seduced by something different.