I was bullied every day at school because I carried a briefcase. I could have left it at home. But I thought it looked great! I didn't understand why anyone else didn't think so.

I think there's nothing more painful for anyone than unrequited love. If you've ever had that kind of physical access to someone and then, all of a sudden, that is denied, and yet you're still in love with that person, it's very, very, very painful to be around that person in a certain way.

Fashion is everything. Art, music, furniture design, graphic design, hair, makeup, architecture, the way cars look -- all those things go together to make a moment in time, and that's what excites me.

I just want to make beautiful, glamorous clothes.

I was not good at team sports, I have to say. I'm quite good at individual sports, but I was not good at team sports, so I wasn't good at baseball and football.

College campuses were once a hotbed of political activity.

I am not someone who likes cocktail parties or large dinner parties, but I have to attend them often. I much prefer very small dinners with close friends.

I think that the older you get, the more you become your true, essential self. You find the things that make you happy. You whittle away the parts of yourself that mean less to you.

The seventies is what I love. Soft, touchable beauty is what I love.

What is important is that we stop and realize, 'Okay. This is fine. I can enjoy that.' But what is really important, what I'm really going to take away with me from this life, is my connection with other people.

Never, ever, ever wear anything you are uncomfortable in. Because that is what you'll project: 'I look like a fool.'

I was on the train from London to Paris, and all of a sudden it just popped into my head: I'm going to do the Don Loper fashion show from 'I Love Lucy.'

I'm a fashion designer. What I do is artistic, but I'm not an artist because everything I do is destined to be sold. That's not to say that you can't be an artist and a fashion designer. I think some designers are artists.

There is no more dramatic accessory than a perfect lip. It is the focus of the face and it has the power to define a woman's whole look.

I think you should suffer sometimes to be attractive and beautiful, so I cut the clothes very slim because I like to feel the clothes on my body.

Glamour is something more than what you put on your body. It has to do with the way you carry yourself and the impact you have on others.

L.A. is my American city.

When you are having fun and creating something you love, it shows in the product. So when a woman is sifting through a rack of clothes, somehow that piece of clothing that you had so much fun designing speaks to her; she responds to it and buys it. I believe you can actually transfer that energy to material things as you're creating them.

If you're at the Oscars, there's not a man on that red carpet who is not wearing make-up. Most straight actors I know get quite used to it. Even when they go out in real life they grab some sort of bronzer and they throw it on. They dye their eyebrows, they dye their lashes -- they know the tricks.

I'm a pretty calm person. That came from living in Italy for a long time. Nothing works, nothing is on time. You have to learn to deal with it.