It's great advice - to open your eyes, have a little humility, and let go of ego. I think that instills in you a sense of responsibility. I also think you have to feel like you want to enrich your life, and you want to keep your eyes open, and you want to listen and be a good listener.

You can squint and see something else, or something will come forward in the paint. You'll always see something else.

I hate grunge. It was the worst period of my life.

I think Alexander McQueen was very, very special. When I went to his first show, I couldn't speak because I was so enthralled. I was saying to myself, "What am I looking at here? What's going on here?" Because, I'm really a loner. I've been a loner for a long time, because I guess I prefer that. For me to get the best out of myself, I have to trust my judgment. And so while watching an Alexander McQueen collection, I would feel isolated. Even though I was surrounded, I would still feel isolated by what I was looking at, if that makes sense.

I like people with guts. I want to feel in the clothes what the designer is really feeling when they're alone with themselves and their fabrics and they're drawings, and what happens when they let the creativity that they have been blessed with come forward. That's why they are who they are.

I always took a great interest in my clothes. My sister, who was 13 months older, and I always dressed alike, but as I got a little bit older, I didn't like that because I wanted to dress differently. So our mother would put Patty in blue and Polly in pink, or we would wear complementary colors, but the shapes we were wearing were always the same, and I was very interested in that. I also took great interest in my dolls and their clothes.

How many times have people said to me, "I think those pants are incredible, but I could never wear them." Well, why not? What's so different about these pants? I wear very classic things, but maybe with a little change here or there.