I think fashion is intensely personal. It should be. It should give a woman a creative outlet, it should give her a little bit of an escape, and it should give her a little bit of individuality that she can add to her life. I don't mean redoing your entire closet. I mean that a great shoe or a great handbag or a great top or a great coat or jacket can change everything.

I was the girl who nobody thought would ever get married. I was going to be a fashion nun the rest of my life. There are generations of them, those fashion nuns, living, eating, breathing clothes.

All those years of skating and dancing have carried over. I can't design anything without thinking of how a woman's body will look and move when she's wearing it.

Fashion to me has become very disposable; I wanted to get back to craft, to clothes that could last.

I see myself as an arbiter of taste.

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.

I was stigmatized by being a bridal designer for a long time. I am amazed I have been able to move beyond it. I had really all but given up trying, but I did it because it was my lifelong dream.