When I entered the market, I was rejected because the elite say that you have to sell things at a certain price point. My position was that the consumer is smarter than that. Who cares if it's $200, not $2,000?
I went through the whole number, you know. The swing era, the boogie woogie era, the bebop era. Thelonious Monk is still one of my favorites. So a lot of these people had their effect on me.
Is that vodka?' Margarita asked weakly. The cat jumped up from its chair in indignation. 'Excuse me, your majesty,' he squeaked, 'do you think I would give vodka to a lady? That is pure spirit!
You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive.
If the first lady is concerned about this Internet cycle, what would she have done during the heyday when there was 12, 13 editions of a paper in one day? What would she have done with that news cycle?
When Fashion Week ends, I miss the shows and the shot of adrenaline that comes with them. Each day is a new show, a new fitting, and you make new friends. Every season you get to know the other girls a little better.
It was never my desire to revolutionize fashion, to make clothes that could be in a museum. I want to create clothes that have a certain style, but I want to see them used. I want to see people enjoy the things I've made.
But in another, I think a woman's going to go into a shop to find a coat or a jacket and I just don't think she's not going to go into a shop because of a bad review she probably didn't even read.
I don't think there is just one Louis Vuitton woman. That is why, for the fall/winter 2011 show, I loved the idea of lots of different characters - a wife, a mistress, a girlfriend - stepping out of the row of hotel elevators.
The red carpet doesn't interest me. I think people become all the same; it's like everyone posing from the three-quarter angle in some low-cut, fitted dress; it's all the same.
Most insensible, corrupt, cheap, disrespectful young girls run after bad, rude, cocky, nonsensical boys, but a mature, educated, thoughtful, virtuos lady opts for a wise, well breed, experienced, humble, modest gentleman.
I can't feel bad about being who I am, just like the girl next to me can't feel bad about being who she is. Because a rose can never be a sunflower, and a sunflower can never be a rose.
I'm that person who says, 'No matter what the problem is, there's a solution.' That's the way my brain is wired. If someone says to me, 'Well, that's not possible. It can't happen,' I say, 'Yes it is. I'm going to sit here and show you that it can.'
I've always been very comfortable wearing not much, in my swimwear or my underwear, or running around naked. I've always been very free like that. I don't really know why, exactly, but I just have been. Not really too shy about that.
In my own creations, the earliest influence came from the ancient civilisations of Egypt, China, Africa and Persia. In fact, one of my earlier creations was a range of tunics, made from silk procured from the islands of Madagascar.
Barack Obama and Jimmy Hoffa are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Lady Gaga and hype, the 'Jersey Shore' cast and hairspray: inseparable. The president can no more disown the Teamsters Union's leader than he can disown his own id.
My inspiration is endless; I can't define it. It is a constant flow and evolution. In general, I'm taking it from everywhere. People get nervous when they walk with me, as I'll see something and suddenly have to text it to myself.
I am always attracted to the moments when a person who is associated with a certain message, image or sensibility evolves. I am very interested in how audiences respond to that maturation and absorb the evolution.
My own brand will stand or fall because of me. Dior won't fall if I fall. It will also still stand if I'm not there. I'm coming in there, and it's like a - I don't know the English word - like a passage.
I realized that I'm a soft person. I think I'm sensitive. I wanted very much to be tough and I think movie stars have a certain kind of resilience and toughness to them, but I'm quite a sensitive young lady in some respects.
When I was in college at the University of Pennsylvania, where I studied international relations and French, I studied abroad in Paris for a semester. I think when you're there, you can't help but be immersed in fashion because it's such a part of th...
