I do think I know more about clothes than any 500 designers, because there's nothing like wearing them. You buy them, you study them, and you start to understand how they're crafted.

Just because you're from a city ten miles outside of St. Paul. It doesn't mean you don't read magazines, or the incredible Internet, and what's going on in the world. I never, ever take a client, or women, for granted.

I like the gritty parts of fashion, the design, the studio, the pictures.

It's important to view fashion as personal and creative - even for brides. When brides ask me, "What's the best advice you can give me on my wedding day?" I always have the same answer: "Be yourself." Someone's marrying you, they love you for who you are, and they don't want you to be someone else, they want you to be who you are. If you never wear blue eye shadow, why would you put it on on your wedding day? If you wear your hair simply, why would you suddenly dye it a different color and get a big 'do? To me it's about respect and self-understanding and honesty.

I always see where I didn't do things the right way. I only see the heavy lifting. That's a bit of my wisdom, if you want to call it that.

Service is a prerequisite for anything relating to luxury. That makes it (shopping) sensual and pleasurable.

New York for me is about work. If L.A. were to become a West Coast version of that, I'd shoot myself. The climate, the lifestyle - it really fits as the yin to my New York yang.