Big businesses can help by engaging aspiring entrepreneurs and promoting initiatives which support small businesses from within.

Sometimes women entrepreneurs are their own challenge, [in terms of] believing in themselves. There is no need to apologise for being ambitious.

Each job I had wasn't necessarily the perfect job, but I always talk to young women about how you really have to take certain things from each job and learn from that and then move on to something you really want to do.

Remember: if the most unique ideas were obvious to everyone, there wouldn’t be entrepreneurs. The one thing that every entrepreneurial journey has in common is that there are many, many steps on the road to success.

I wanted stores that would feel like a comfortable room in my apartment, cozy and colorful and different.

The easy glamour of the French Riviera in the late 1960s - inspired by Romy Schneider's character in La Piscine - mixed with garden elements. Blueprint, botanical, lattice, Queen Anne's lace and folly prints are paired with cleaner silhouettes and proportions in a fresh palette of green, white and coral.

When I started my company, many people said I shouldn't launch it as a retail concept because it was too big a risk. They told me to launch as a wholesaler to test the waters - because that was the traditional way.