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In architecture and interiors, as well as fashion, there is an interaction that is both functional and aesthetic.
When you go public, the value equation of your company changes immediately. It is valued on anticipated earnings.
I'm a pragmatist, and I don't like gratuitous fashion - in fact, there's not that much gratuitous anything in my life.
Giving back is something most companies look to do at certain times of the year. We as a company look to do it all year.
My mother has a very chic sense of style, but she also has high expectations for her clothes to be functional and practical.
This is what I wanted the business to be when I started it: a lot of black, a lot of luxurious materials, and modern styling.
When we get up in the morning, what we put on is very much a reflection of how we see the world and how we want it to see us.
We as a country are very good at responding to acute, short-term crises. When the crisis becomes chronic, we tend to withdraw.
I've always believed that fashion is not just what you look like on the outside, it's a reflection of who you are on the inside.
When you sit around at dinner talking about the death penalty, it's hard to find relevance in what color shoes will be next season.
When I started this business, my job was to sell people on my brand and convince them to embrace it in a way that made sense to them.
We will redo a shoe 15 times before we get it right, to get it where it should be and hopefully it will fit and look the way it should.
I wanted to create clothes for women in their 40s and 50s and 60s who have careers and are sexy and dont want to look like grandmothers.
When I started this business, I never anticipated this would become a platform for me to talk about things that I personally believe in.
That's a big part of being a designer now: going out, having dinners, meeting people. Being in an ivory tower, you can feel very removed.
I wanted to create clothes for women in their 40s and 50s and 60s who have careers and are sexy and don't want to look like grandmothers.
Often people ask me about getting involved in service and philanthropy, and my first advice is: Make sure it's real and it's transparent.
Not taking those few moments in the morning to decide what you're saying to people by how you're choosing to dress is a lost opportunity.
I wanted to make the brand cool again. I needed to make it a little smaller to make it bigger and I needed to change the consumer experience.
Our business is fashion, and it's about timing and in our case, it's about being relevant and there's nothing more relevant than current affairs.
I came to realize that the law is about a book of rules, and he who learns them best, and is the most creative in interpreting them, goes furthest.
In my opinion, being able to do some form of service is a gift. The one that provides the service is the greatest beneficiary - I will attest to it.
Today, I believe everybody's their own brand, and everybody has their own brand and they curate their own brand on their Facebook and Twitter pages.
For years, the company was known as a women's shoe company. Then we added men's clothing, shirts and shoes, and people thought of us as a men's brand.
After working with my father for two years, we started Candie's, a line of imported shoes from Italy. Then in 1982 I set out to start my own business.
None of what I do is political. My messages are social and human messages. In many cases, they've been politicized but they are so much bigger than that.
Important moments like this are time to reflect. To remind us, sometimes, that it's not only important what you wear, but it's also important to be aware.
There are many in the AIDS community who have said we won't find a cure in the foreseeable future. Well, you certainly won't find it if you're not looking.
In the fashion business, there weren't any rules. In fact, the better you were at creating something new, the greater the likelihood you would be successful.
You can build a brand very fast now, especially with bloggers and how fast images can get out - the message just goes out faster and stronger than ever before.
It's very hard to argue against the message that we all have AIDS. It's not hard to make the case that we all have been affected, both culturally and spiritually.
I don't know what Galliano was thinking. Apparently he dressed people as homeless and sent them down the runway. That's not very tasteful and somewhat exploitive.
It is astounding how evolved and progressed India has become. It is holding on to its extraordinary rich culture and becoming global and Western at the same time.
I'm actually in the process of running from office. I've got so much access and ability to do so much great social outreach and public service as a private person.
You can't build a fashion business with a short-term perspective, unless you're prepared to make investments that you know are not going to pay dividends immediately.
I've struggled with that over the years: Is fashion relevant? Is it frivolous? Is it trivial? Because I give so much of my essence to it, as do everybody I work with.
People have a whole lot more choices than they've had in the past, and I have only earned the right to be considered - every day I have to earn the right to be chosen.
It's not about me, it's about you, the customer. And if I am effective in making what I do about you, and I can enhance you and elevate you, you will support me forever.
Every day when a man or woman gets dressed, they are in effect defining who they are. That daily clean slate is a time in our lives when we can determine who we want to be.
I've always believed that how you look is a self-fulfilling prophecy: When you wake up, get dressed and look in the mirror, if you think you look good, most likely you will.
I am probably not the best creative person in the industry. I am probably not the best business person in the industry. But by nature being both, I think, is a strategic advantage.
The stigma, the fact that nobody was talking about AIDS was arguably killing more people than the virus itself. So I did an ad about the fact that nobody was speaking about HIV/AIDS.
One of my biggest pet peeves is well-dressed designers. If you spend that much time thinking about your own clothes, you're not spending enough time thinking about what you're designing.
If every shoe store in America stops selling shoes, no one's going to go barefoot for 15, 20 years. No one needs shoes, for the most part. We have shoes; our problem is what to do with them.
I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. I believe that clothes should make a woman feel beautiful. But sometimes it's the little things like cut and fit and sex appeal that make a large impact.
I don't think I'm an artist or that I'm doing anything superintellectual. What's important to me is to get a visceral reaction from people, for them to want that coat because they think it's beautiful.
To the degree you could provoke people and engage them in a unique way, your message is more likely to resonate longer. I figured out the less-than-140-character concept long before Twitter came along.
I think the power of messaging is saying something in as few words as possible, because I think we all essentially have ADD. It's not a clinically diagnosed state anymore; it's a socially imposed state.
When you live in Paris, and fashion is such a point of pride for the French, it's always around and you're very much exposed to it from an early age. It was always something I knew about and really liked.
There is a sound reason why one and a half billion dollars are spent for cosmetics in your country every year, and only half that sum for education: There are no naturally pretty girls in the United States.