I think that the older you get, the more you become your true, essential self. You find the things that make you happy. You whittle away the parts of yourself that mean less to you.

I'm very aware that when my friends and I sit around over dinner these days, the conversation invariably turns to how crass the world has become. Tweeting? It's one of the silliest things ever.

I'm not designing clothes for someone who is doing lines of coke off the table, like I was when I was at Gucci and Saint Laurent

I think that the older you get, the more you become your true, essential self. You find the things that make you happy. You whittle away the parts of yourself that mean less to you.

If you are a designer, sometimes it is better not to delegate, because someone pays money for something that you designed, so it should be exactly the way you want it, exactly the way you would have chosen it. People call me a control freak, and I say, "Well, my name is on the shoe." It means the heel needs to be the way I want it and not the way somebody else wants it, and the toe needs to be exactly the way I want it, and the fabric and the material have to be exactly the way I want it. It is not a democracy - it is a dictatorship.

In another life I would love to be a cosmetic surgeon because it’s architectural. You know, you are trying to figure out where the seams go. Can I do it in one piece like Halston? Can you formaldehyde DNA?

When I come home I actually take off all my clothes, and I wear no clothes until I leave. I eat naked. I do everything completely naked.