I was the last one of nine kids - eight girls and me last - and my sisters were going out. They were teenagers. And as they were getting ready, I would sit on the bathtub and watch them put on makeup and transform themselves - you know, putting on clothes and giggling about the boys they were going to meet and everything. So for me, that was an amazing thing - the fact of transforming themselves.

I didn't know I was going to become a designer; I was going to become a successful person, but I really wanted to be free.

Being a creative mind, you have to examine who you are every day.

I listen to certain opinions because those are important to me. I am a Leo, so I very much have my feet on the ground, and I know what I want, but there is also a side of me which is a little softer, still a little bit of a boy who has not grown up and who listens a lot.

I used to hate to go to school, because when it was Friday afternoon and everybody was finished school, I knew I was going to work Saturday and Sunday.

We didn't have a television, so we sat around the table, and me and my sisters and my mom would do these jobs, like, a penny for a piece, you know, these paper jobs. You know, what really saved me as a human today is my sisters and my mom.

One thing my mom didn't want any of us to do was to cry or to complain about life. Every day and night, even when we didn't have much food, we would pray together. And that for me was a beautiful moment. The fact of being poor didn't really hurt me.