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

I see myself as an arbiter of taste.

I started at the very highest level so the upper end is something I know very well. I know it instinctively. But all the years I was designing, it frustrated me that I could reach so few women.

It's hard to balance everything. It's always challenging.

In terms of bridal dress, I've tried everything. I've tried short, long, deconstructed, constructed, bustiers, working in fabrics, working in color. I've been working in color in bridal for probably 15 years. Who else would do an entire collection dipped in tea? I did that one year. My design team dipped every single dress in tea in a bathtub. I did that just because I wanted to work out of the vocabulary of white.

They never ask the celebrities why they don't wear their own clothes on the red carpet.

My mother was extremely controlled, sort of flawless. And I always tend to be a bit more hippie.