I try to find people who love and believe in what I do - and people I can respect because they do what I don't do. I've had to bring in financial people and put them in positions where they could tell me, "Ralph, let's not do that."

When you think of the blur of all the brands that are out there, the ones you believe in and the ones you remember, like Chanel and Armani, are the ones that stand for something. Fashion is about establishing an image that consumers can adapt to their own individuality. And it's an image that can change, that can evolve. It doesn't reinvent itself every two years.

The clothes that I design and everything I've done is about life and how people live and how they want to live and how they dream they'll live. That's what I do.

We all get report cards in many different ways, but the real excitement of what you're doing is in the doing of it. It's not what you're gonna get in the end - it's not the final curtain - it's really in the doing it, and loving what you're doing.

We all have to fight to maintain our unique style and taste in a world that would have us conform.

I didn't have a vision as in, This is where I'm going. I had a vision as in, "This is what I love to do."

You have to create something from nothing.