I'm very lucky. The public happens to like me. Maybe they like me because I use every opportunity to talk about injustice.
In Italy they take cheap cloth and make it look expensive, but I take expensive cloth and make it look cheap. They just don't understand.
There is no hierarchy of values any more. Real progress is due mainly to human genius, and that's rare, and usually stems from a real elite, from a hierarchy.
I don't watch television and I rarely go to the cinema, but I recently watched 'The King's Speech' on a flight. It was so beautiful and so simple.
What changed our lives forever was when Malcolm had the idea to sell rock 'n roll records to trendy customers.
I am always trying to find fabrics that are more friendly to the environment - working with Virgin Atlantic, they managed to research into this and find more eco fabrics.
I tend not to like an awful lot of what is going out under my name now because it is just all product. Who needs it?
I very rarely watch my own fashion shows, but the makeup for my Fall 2011 show was just brilliant.
I work on fittings, mostly. You know, I sketch less and less in my work. I sketch for the show sometimes, but then it becomes more conceptual. But when I don't sketch, it becomes more pragmatic.
I think I'm a global citizen. My parents came from China, were educated in France and emigrated to the United States. And I think that opened up my mind to be able to live and work anywhere.
In France you cannot not have lunch. If you stopped the French from having lunch, you will have a second revolution, I can tell you this. Not going to work - it is part of the French privilege.
I'm a designer, and I work very hard at that. People sometimes want to put down fashion by saying it's frivolous or superficial, but it's not that way at all. It's actually very hard work.
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 work with structure, but I go outside the box and give it my own spin. I adore the challenge of creating truly modern clothes - where a woman's personality and sense of style are realized.
For women raised in the '70s, high heels can still carry a stigma; they're associated with being stupid, with just wanting to please a man. Other women find them empowering.
I like to undress women - not to dress them. You know, like Manet's 'Olympia' or Helmut Newton's photographs - naked women with shoes. This is what I am trying to do.
I don't even know what my natural colour is. Natural? What is natural? What is that? I do not believe in totally natural for women. For me, natural has something to do with vegetables.
When I got to be a CEO, I said: 'Right. I'm now going to tackle gender inequality head-on. I'm going to make a difference and lead by example and actively put in place policies and practices to support women.'
I don't think women should look like costumes. I don't think they should look like fashion victims. I think these (clothes) are for women that want to look sexy. They want to look smart.
It's for all the women who embrace my aesthetic, but can't afford a Vera Wang dress. If women can get anything out of it - a little bit of me or a lot of me, that's what's important.
I think that feminists have definitely underestimated the role that women have had historically. I think I would be insecure if I were to be a man; there's so much pressure on you.
