I learned early on in teaching how easy it is to hurt a young person and that's never my intention.

I just don't like conspicuous consumption. I find it distasteful.

I'm conflicted. On one hand, I don't want to say that because you were a man and now you're a woman, you can't be in a women's fashion show. But I feel it's a dicey issue. The fact of the matter is, when you are transgender - if you go, say, male to female - you're not having your pelvis broken and having it expanded surgically. You still have the anatomical bone structure of a man.

Does a man need to know what a peplum is? Probably not.

A couple of things for the not-so-diminutive man: avoid any prints that are large scale, because you will look like the print is wearing you, as opposed to you wearing the print.

Whether it's fashion or it's home, it's all about style. The clothes we wear send a message about how we are perceived, and our home does the same thing.

I would say this to my students all the time, it's about 30% you as the teacher and 70% about them. They tend to think that their role is to be the baby bird in a nest and you're going to feed them? They're going to feed themselves, or they're going to starve.