Choose your team carefully. So much of your success is due to the people who you surround yourself with. Your friends, your family, and the people that you work with -- they all play an important role in inspiring you and supporting you and giving you stability. These are the people in your life who will be honest with you.

I thought I was fabulous and everyone else was stupid.

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.

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.

When I read about young designers selling 51 percent of their company to someone else, I cringe. I want to say, 'Don't do it - call me first.'

There's a different kind of comfort that comes from knowing that you are putting your best foot forward. It's called psychological comfort. Look at a picture of the Coney Island boardwalk in 1925. Men were in full-on three-piece suits, hats. They may have only had one suit. But they pressed it. They made it look as good as possible.

It's hard not to be sexy in a pair of high heels.