I learned little by little. I learned how to draw. I learned how to tell the difference in the quality of fabrics - the subtle differences. I started with collections for men. So my first collection for women was deeply inspired by male roles.
I've designed since I was 12. The first was when I skated to Carmen, in red and gold and black. I wanted so many frills at that time. It had a lot going on for a little person like me. And I picked out fabrics that didn't stretch. Very uncomfortable.
I was a teacher and an administrator at Parson's School of Design, and as an administrator, I was associate dean. And in that role, I went around fixing things that were broken. And the Parson's fashion program was broken.So fashion chose me. It needed to be developed and evolve. I don't know if it comes naturally to anyone.
I like stuff designed by dead people. The old designers. They always got it right because they didn't have to grow up with computers. All of the people that made the spoon and the dishes and the vacuum cleaner didn't have microprocessors and stuff. You could do a good design back then.
One doesn't want fashion to look ridiculous, silly, or out of step with the times - but you do want designers that make you think, that make you look at fashion differently. That's how fashion changes. If it doesn't change, it's not looking forward. And that's important to me.
When I first started designing, all women were dressed like men, and I said, 'Hey, guys, let's be women, put the two together - it's not either/or. Let's celebrate our bodies. Our bodies are different.'
Later works are better because it takes a lot of time in architecture to mature. And, it takes a lot of discipline to experience everything that is changing around you.
Of course, I did lots of what would be called graphic design now, what used to be called commercial art.
Modern architecture needed to be part of an evolutionary, not a revolutionary, process.
How good the design is doesn't matter near as much as whether the design is getting better or worse. If it is getting better, day by day, I can live with it forever. If it is getting worse, I will die.
My earliest design work was print, and that was my first love. Of course, as the years went on, I did more and more Web design and less and less print. And like everyone who made the switch from print to Web design, I bemoaned the lack of control.
I think of each new season as an evolution, not a change in style.
Any design, any city, any kind of craziness or tragedy, it all comes from a long time of preparation.
We no longer think of chairs as technology, we just think of them as chairs. But there was a time when we hadn't worked out how many legs chairs should have, how tall they should be, and they would often "crash" when we tried to use them. Before long, computers will be as trivial and plentiful as chairs and we will cease to be aware of the things. In fact I'm sure we will look back on this last decade and wonder how we could ever have mistaken what we were doing with them for "productivity"
No. I mean those people really did something for designers I don't think department stores can, could or should do still today. Today the world is different so you have to make it differently. There's TV. There's a lot of things.
I’ve always been very detail orientated, but I have gone from embellishment to nudity - from designing for a woman that likes to be dressed to designing for a woman that likes to be undressed.
In fact, we started off with two or three different shells and the shell had life of its own.
The public is more familiar with bad design than good design. It is, in effect, conditioned to prefer bad design, because that is what it lives with. The new becomes threatening, the old reassuring.
Consider the momentous event in architecture when the wall parted and the column became.
There is a strong reciprocal relationship whereby our more ambitious design visions encourage the continuing development of the new digital technologies and fabrication techniques, and those new developments in turn inspire us to push the design envelope ever further.
Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
Information design has been around since the 1970s. Pioneers like Yale University design guru Edward Tufte and design agency Pentagram have long known and used its power. But now with the rise of the Internet, it's having something of a second birth.
My mom used to take me to antique shows, which I hated because everything was so dusty and old and there were all these weird ladies selling their antiques. We call them "eclectic" now. But it was really amazing that I was exposed to that when I was younger. Now that I have my own taste, I understand it more.
I would say I'm waiting for, I guess, designers to open up their vision.
Is there a necessary succession in style, or are these things pure chance?
