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.

Fashion is harder than the film industry. You have to constantly be able to crank out hit after hit after hit on demand and on a very tight calendar. I've come back, I've lost it, I've come back again. It's really as good as your last collection.

A good trick as you get older is to get a thick pair of glasses that have a dark frame. Everything else can droop and slide but that pair of dark glasses stays sharp and crisp. Look at Cary Grant. Look at Vidal Sassoon.

The U.S. used to be perceived as the moral leader of the world, and we have absolutely lost that.

When I was young, I wanted to be a movie star. But I realized that you have no control being an actor. So I went to architecture school in NYC, because I was crazy about buildings. Then I began to realize that I got more excited about Vogue coming out each month than I was about my projects.

I don't believe in playing around much with suit cuts. I like a fairly classic shape that gives a man strong shoulders, a fitted waist, and long legs. Classic simplicity always works.

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.