Banking types should take their cue from Gordon Gekko. Or pick the best-looking banker in their firm and copy him.

Perfection is almost an illness with me, but sometimes I have moments where everything is absolutely clear and you can feel, rather than think.

Fashion is everything. Art, music, furniture design, graphic design, hair, makeup, architecture, the way cars look - all those things go together to make a moment in time, and that's what excites me.

I think we're very uptight in America. You have to remember that we're descended from Puritans. Whether or not the country is now composed of immigrants, our culture as American really begins with the landing of the Pilgrims and a puritanical view of things.

Fashion is very quick. It's very disposable. It's immediately - it tells you exactly where we are in our culture, especially women's fashion.

I am tired of the cult of youth. The cultural rejection of old age, the stigmatization of wrinkles, grey hair, of bodies furrowed by the years. I am fascinated by Diana Vreeland, Georgia O’Keeffe and Louise Bourgeois, women who have let time embrace them without ever cheating. Society today condemns this, me, I celebrate it.

I love New York. It's given me so much as a designer. When I moved here, I wanted to tap into the glamour of the city immediately. More than anywhere else, New York offers itself up - you arrive and get a rush in a flash. It's dazzling. Everywhere you look, there is decoration, from a pair of jewel-encrusted shoes in the window in Bergdorf Goodman to the Chrysler Building. And New York is incredibly democratic. Everyone is packed into this tiny space. You are confronted with all manner of people, and I love that.