When I was a little kid, all I wanted to do was to escape what I thought was the country and get to a city. Probably film and television had influenced me so much, I really thought the key to happiness was living a very artificial life in a penthouse in New York with martini glasses.

L.A. is my American city.

Men don't wear fashion any more except in Italy and London. Americans have lost that.

In my early 40s I started to feel that I had neglected the spiritual side of my life. It had always been there, but I'd neglected it. In fashion, that's really easy because we live in the future, and we can place too much importance on material things.

If I'm having a bad day I put on the very best thing I have. I polish my shoes, I shine everything up, because that helps me get though the day. It helps me, you know, it's in a sense armor. It says, okay, I'm a mess inside but you know what, on the outside I'm going to be pulled together, everything is okay.

When I was a kid, I thought I was going to be an actor. I actually studied acting when I was at NYU, and I made a lot of television commercials - that's actually how I put myself through NYU and through college.

I love to design. I am a commercial fashion designer. I always design jackets with two sleeves. I don't design jackets with three sleeves, or the layers and layers come off like little dolls from Russia. Fashion for me is a creative endeavor, but it is not art for me.