The natures of men and women are very mixed, and for me, the most fascinating type of woman is the one who is a little masculine, has a little of the man in her, and the sort of man who is fabulous is the one who is a little woman, too. It's impossible not to mix them!

If you're entering into fashion in an original way, you have to know your craft, and you have to know your history. You have to be obsessively dedicated. You have to be relentless about making it happen. It doesn't take a bank. It takes passion, love, timing, and luck.

I get so much inspiration from my travels, but I also started an exercise where I write down so many words every week. Then I begin crossing them off. We create a grid of words and also images, but words for me are more ample because you can interpret them your own way.

Right after high school, I moved to Rio and took classes to become a technician for a manufacturing factory where you had to figure out how to produce 3,000 pairs of jeans. But in Rio, I was by myself, which was very liberating, being so young. I got to do my own thing.

A lot of people's circumstances can change very, very quickly, and people can move jobs, relationships can break down, something else could happen, and the next thing you know, you can't pay your rent, you can't get the support you require, and you're out on the street.

An athletic man, or whatever you want to call him, will only look good in a very classic suit, a pair of classic jeans, athletic clothes or simply naked. Forget fashion. This is not going to happen, unless you want to look like a Chippendales dancer in designer clothes.

In American culture you leave home at 18. In the Asian culture, your parents don't really want you to leave home. So my parents just thought I was going to be one of those kids. I was like, "I'm never going to make a living at whatever I do." I just liked pretty things.

The polishedness and the sophistication were what I was interested in. I mean, give me a polka dot, a floral print, a pleated dress, a big fur coat, that was always my language, and it wasn't very "in" when I was starting out, so I had a difficult time in the beginning.

What's comfortable to me is familiarity. Comfort has nothing to do with the size of the garment. I do find something quite comfortable and charming in a too-narrow shoulder, a sleeve that's too short or too long, a pant that's too high or too low, hems that are trod on.

The consumption of animals - whether you're wearing them or eating them - is extraordinarily damaging to the planet. There are over a billion animals killed a year for food, half of which don't even get eaten. And there's over 50 million animals killed just for fashion.

Men don't know enough about being courteous toward women. You should get into a cab before a woman so she doesn't have to slide across the seat. And you should always go first into a revolving door so she doesn't have to push - unless it's moving, then let her go first.

I'm always attracted to people who interest me. They've got to be people who are really true to themselves somehow, and who are always trying to do something that makes their life more interesting, or better, or something for somebody else. They're interested in people.

I want to be honest about the world that we live in, and sometimes my political persuasions come through in my work. Fashion can be really racist, looking at the clothes of other cultures as costumes. . . . That’s mundane and it’s old hat. Let’s break down some barriers.

I don't see anybody categorized as a 'fashion diva,' except for me! And I like that. I am thought of as a diva because I wear an evening dress and I take care of my look when I go out. I go to parties regarding business, not for fun. And that's why they call me a 'diva.'

The way my mom dressed was one of my earliest inspirations, in those '80s suits with shoulder pads and things like that. For years, I ran away from that style. But now, all I want to do is shoulder pads and nipped-in waists and padded hips and peplums and poufed dresses.

Life is not a beauty contest, some [ugly people] are great. What I hate is nasty, ugly people... the worst is ugly, short men. Women can be short, but for men it is impossible. It is something that they will not forgive in life... they are mean and they want to kill you.

Of course there are some evening dresses that you cannot wear in daylight because it would be ridiculous, but there is a kind of dressy touch for daywear, too, ... And everything, it's easy. There's no barrier between dressy, day and sports. It's feminine 24 hours a day.

The relationship between looking and desire is really about the promise of revelation - the hope that the subject of your gaze will reveal something to you - whether or not that revelation is prurient. And that's really what eroticism is - the anticipation of disclosure.

The Winter Kate-House of Harlow 1960 customer is a multi-tasker, therefore it’s important that they are able to put together an outfit with ease and elegance. Pieces that are easy to mix within their own wardrobe. Easy dressing while maintaining a well put together look.

The Winter Kate-House of Harlow 1960 customer is a multi-tasker, therefore it's important that they are able to put together an outfit with ease and elegance. Pieces that are easy to mix within their own wardrobe. Easy dressing while maintaining a well put together look.

You know, for myself, my personal journey has been a very fortunate one and I would say to people it's like the stars lined up and the skies opened up and the sun shined and I met the right people - was at the right time. And, most importantly, you know I love what I do.

I listen to certain opinions because those are important to me. I am a Leo, so I very much have my feet on the ground, and I know what I want, but there is also a side of me which is a little softer, still a little bit of a boy who has not grown up and who listens a lot.

I married a man who was in fashion. I began to work when my daughter Nathalie was about eight or 10 years old. Then one day I began to make a sweater, and eventually the sweater was on the front page of Elle magazine. And the day after I was the queen of knit in America.

There is something sinister, something quite biographical about what I do - but that part is for me. It's my personal business. I think there is a lot of romance, melancholy. There's a sadness to it, but there's romance in sadness. I suppose I am a very melancholy person.

People get this very romantic vision of a fashion designer who in one night makes 25 sketches and in the morning throws them on the table and there are a lot of women in white aprons with the pins on the lapel and they start to grab the sketches and... It's not like that.

It was always sort of my dream to make handbags and I wanted a handbag that was very sharp, very structured, very tailored... I wanted a bag you could put all of your things in it, you can open it, you could close it, you could hid all your tricks, but it's not all lumpy.

When you grow up in Bel Air and shop only in expensive boutiques on Rodeo and Robertson, you develop a kind of allergy to anything unpretty -clothes, cars... even people... you start thinking that if you hang around unattractive people, their homeliness can be contagious.

I started to take care of my body after I turned 50. I never liked how I looked physically because I was too cute, short, with coloring only on my cheeks, the perfect little nose, and then the blue eyes. I was a hit with girls, who told me it was like I was in Technicolor.

An Isaac Mizrahi fashion-show ticket signed by Steven Meisel. I rushed up to Meisel at the end of the show and asked him to autograph the card that had his name and seating assignment on it. It was an incredible moment when he shot the autumn/winter 2014 Moschino campaign.

The apparent pointlessness of fashion may be just what makes it so strong as a zeitgeist sensor. Even I, a designer, do not know why a certain proportion feels dated or why another one feels exciting at a given moment. I leave that to the cultural historians and theorists.

I am somebody who focuses on a dialogue between generations - that's the drive of my work. I believe the young generation take the power; they'll take over at one point, but the older generation, they'll push it away only because of the fear. I'm the opposite; I'm curious.

I'm always looking to make something that didn't exist before, fumbling about in the dark, not just while making a collection. The search for something new is a constant in my everyday life. But constantly searching for something new is like looking for a well in a desert.

In the beginning, to be honest I was super-scared. I turned up and took a step back and said, 'I am here to learn,' and I feel the same today. I've got only to learn from these people because they have been doing couture for 30 or 40 years, so I keep learning every season.

I think forums are great. It's a weird thing to overhear a conversation about yourself. But, the bottom line is that these people are really interested; they get the image and they get very opinionated and it turns into squabbles. You know that's human nature, that's life.

The McQueen woman doesn't want to feel casual. It's not that kind of world. When you put on the clothes, they make you stand differently, feel differently. It was about how to do that but make it feel light. I've always been part of Lee's romantic side, that's what I love.

A very young girl, myself, and my 70-year-old mother all look quite different wearing some of the same clothes from my shop. The whole secret is to know how to do it and some people never will, just like some can't make light pastry: they are lacking in some sort of grace.

Very early, I thought I would go into music, but I was aware that it would bring a set of obstacles I didn't find particularly attractive. Also, I'm not a great performer! For a while, I thought I would do something in landscape gardening. But it was always fashion for me.

This is going to sound crazy, but the first thing I do when I get home is take off all my clothes - at home, just around the house. I take everything off. I can't stand clothes! I take everything off - my shoes, my socks, my watch, shirt, everything. I am completely naked.

I really have fun making up. I have a good face for making up, good bones. I do the shapings, then the eyes. Then I put on mascara and I do something else. Then I put on mascara again and do something else. Then I put on more mascara and my whole face is completely made up.

My strong sense of discipline has always been with me, and it also gave me the need for deep affection. I have never been satisfied with acquaintances who are superficial, volatile, or quick to change. I have surrounded myself with people with whom I am in total complicity.

When I was designing, I had in mind Jimi Hendrix, and I could hardly find skinny indie black kids to wear my clothes. I remember one telling me he had to swap his skinny jeans for baggy ones in the subway before going home, so he wouldn't get in trouble in his neighborhood.

Why should I stop working? If I do, I'll die and it'll all be finished. 'm lucky to work in the most perfect of conditions. I can do what I want in all kinds of areas. The expenses are not expenses. I would be stupid to stop that. Work is making a living out of being bored.

I never cared about buying things for myself, like clothes. And then all of a sudden I realized how great it is to be very precise about the shirts that I wear and all the things that are a part of my closet. So the ritual of fashion and shopping became very personal to me.

I remember one day, when things were going frightfully well, I went to buy myself a really smashing car. I asked them to show me a Porsche with an automatic gearbox, and the salesman called over all the other salesmen, and they stood around absolutely roaring with laughter.

I don't have so many things in the fashion world that interest me. It's probably because I am so deeply into it. Often when you go very deep into something, you also discover what it's about, and you understand it better. With the art world, I still have a lot of curiosity.

I went through the extremes of amazing notoriety and also the dreaded things that you never thought you'd have to live through. Not everything works the way you want it to, but if I sit back and think, 'Am I happy about this?' Yeah. I wouldn't have done anything any better.

When I see that the clothes are sold the day they debut in some cases, I fear we are going to kill the invisible side of fashion, the mystery. Now with the industry, it's getting a bit difficult to create any mystery. But it's quite an interesting period. It's a bit chaotic.

I turned my hand to costume design a few years ago when I created the outfits for 'This Is the Sea,' with Richard Harris and Samantha Morton. It's a very different discipline to being a fashion designer, though - you have to rein in your own vision and work to a tight brief.

I come from a blue-collar family. My father worked at the American Can Company as a mechanic. He broke his back and was disabled, and the first memory I have of him is in the hospital. My mother was a working mother - she had two jobs. Everybody in the house had to help out.

Today there are more things you can wear for the same occasions. I still like this idea of the perfect suit, and I always love tailoring, but today you can have more things for this type of situation, clothes that have class and that are mixable, and that are super well cut.

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