In my adult life I've understood that if I put an enormous amount of love and honesty into something, usually that shows in the end.

A few times in my life I've had moments of clarity where the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think.

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.

London is one of the few cities where people still dress properly and fashion exists. Every day I see women who've thought about their outfits. They've picked out the bag, put on proper shoes. ... Do you know how rare it is in parts of America to actually see 'an outfit'? France? I don't want to be anti-French but there isn't a more unattractive group of people on the streets.

If you're at the Oscars, there's not a man on that red carpet who is not wearing make-up. Most straight actors I know get quite used to it. Even when they go out in real life they grab some sort of bronzer and they throw it on. They dye their eyebrows, they dye their lashes - they know the tricks.

We live in a material world. I'm not saying that beautiful things don't enhance our lives. But, in our culture, we're never happy.

I was the sensitive, shy kid that was teased a lot. I was very definitely bullied. I mean, from an early age, I dressed more like an adult, you know, jackets and very slim trousers and a raincoat. And I - even when I was 7, 8, 9-years-old, carried an attache case to school because I just hated the sloppiness of a book bag.