I think the biggest challenge we faced in making 'The September Issue' was the fact that people in the fashion world are very suspicious of cameras. They're used to a camera being the enemy, something that is prying and looking to catch you in a compromising position, something that's judging you.
Fashion is used as a tool to convey a point about who we are or potentially want to be. Whether or not a civilian curates his or her own aesthetic is up that person, but it is an integral part of one's public image.
My aunt was Frances Hodges, who in the Fifties was the editor of 'Seventeen' and later one of the creators of 'Mademoiselle.' She was my Auntie Mame; she loved culture. She was a Quaker, but she became a milliner against all Quaker logic - they feel that fashion and art are vanities - because she loved fashion.
I told myself that I would not come back to women's fashion until I felt I had something new to say. I feel that fashion has become too serious and that the actual customer's needs have not really been addressed. Fashion needs to make one happy. It is a luxury and should enhance one's quality of life.
I'm not a fashion architect. I don't dress in Ralph Lauren and Gucci. When I buy a suit, I buy it at J. Press. I have a blue blazer that I wear 80 percent of the time.
I only like luxury fashion. You have to decide where you stand. I like well-made, authentic clothes, well-crafted tailoring. I also like the dream and fantasy of luxury, the exception and rarity of it. I have no interest at all in fast retail. It is ambiguous.
Not everyone can be successful selling fashion at $25,000 for a wedding outfit. Certain designers are able to do that. And there is only a certain amount of consumers who can do that. The real opportunity is in that $25 garment.
So, I don't work in terms of real time. I don't work in a timely fashion.
Listen, 'real' women are the reason the fashion industry exists.
I've never seen most of the fashion reality shows. The only one I've seen is 'Project Runway,' which is great, but I don't watch television.
I think reality television has made the fashion industry and the beauty industry, any industry - frankly, just life - it has made life seem much different than it really is.
I've sold everything from fashion, make-up, couture magazines, radio, reality television, movies. There isn't a thing I haven't sold, including Tampax. You name it.
It's pretty incredible to think that someone who once dreamed of a life in fashion could go from reading 'Vogue' during recess in elementary school to eventually seeing his designs grace those very pages.
The idea of recklessly spending money - even though it sounds like it's lots of fun, it's fashion - isn't interesting to me. It is a business.
No designer has really wowed me yet, I'm into other people's recommendations when it comes to fashion.
We've sweated and torn out our hair trying to reconstruct our chosen lives, to fashion them like literary sculptures, at once monumental and yet human. We've applied all of our intelligence, our empathy, our critical faculties, our compassion - and we think, in our delusion, that it's still 1960, and our work is going to get noticed.
It's certainly a cliche to remark that a nonfiction book 'reads just like a novel,' but in the case of Jonathan Eig's 'The Birth of the Pill,' I have no other recourse, since his narrative is full of larger-than-life characters sharply limned and embarked on fascinating doings, their story told in sprightly visual fashion.
Fashion takes its inspiration from society and everyday life, which is the same for everyone, and this is perhaps the reason why certain elements recur.
Sometimes in order for change to be made in a positive fashion, we must force ourselves to look unblinkingly at painful realities and reevaluate.
Fashion is a mirror, reflecting the culture.
