So perhaps the real secret to style is filling yourself to the absolute brim with engagement. Loving not wisely, but too well and all that.

It's so important to reach out to people you trust, and who can give you honest feedback, and keep those people close to you. You don't want to surround yourself with enablers.

Call me a schoolmarm, but few things make me angrier than people not taking good care of library materials.

What's interesting about textiles is that they are determined about three seasons in advance, that's why when you walk into a store you think "Gee, everything looks about the same."

I'm honest about expressing my opinions. At the same time, I'm diplomatic in how I do critique things if I have a negative response.

I'm constantly correcting young people and fashion students in this nation when they say "Well, I do couture." By definition, you don't. You have to be licensed by the government of France to do couture. So don't use that term. You can say that you do one-of-a-kind, you can say it's custom, but you can't say it's couture - because it's inaccurate.

I grew up with an absolutely horrible, debilitating stutter, and it was what caused me to retreat into myself and caused me to have very few friends and not want to socialize, and it made me absolutely terrified of giving reports in school. It was awful. It wasn't until I was 19 that I had intensive speech therapy. I had it for two years and it really helped, though I will say when I'm tired, the stutter comes out, even now.