“I see myself as an arbiter of taste.”

I wanted to define the vocabulary of a wedding both visually and intellectually. The book is about more than weddings or wedding dresses. It’s a metaphor for women’s lives, their creativity.

Service is a prerequisite for anything relating to luxury. That makes it (shopping) sensual and pleasurable.

Fashion to me has become very disposable; I wanted to get back to craft, to clothes that could last.

I was the girl who nobody thought would ever get married. I was going to be a fashion nun the rest of my life. There are generations of them, those fashion nuns, living, eating, breathing clothes.

I’ve been designing since I was 8. I started sketching dresses I could wear when skating. I was always involved in all aspects of skating, not just the technique, the choreography, the music, but the visual aspects, too – what I should wear.

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.

When I design a wedding dress with a bustle, it has to be one the bride can dance in. I love the idea that something is practical and still looks great.

Figure skating has been a great influence for me. I took dance at the School of American Ballet, which helped my own skating. And whether you are a skater or a dancer, without sounding narcissistic, it is all about looking in the mirror.

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.

All those years of skating and dancing have carried over. I can’t design anything without thinking of how a woman’s body will look and move when she’s wearing it.

Even the most understated ceremony involves a certain respect for ritual and pageantry. No one plays more of a significant role than the bride’s attendants.

It’s hard to balance everything. It’s always challenging.

I hate phones. All businesses are personal businesses, and I always try my best to get back to people, but sometimes the barrage of calls is so enormous that if I just answered calls I would do nothing else.

I do think I know more about clothes than any 500 designers, because there’s nothing like wearing them. You buy them, you study them, and you start to understand how they’re crafted.

I want people to see the dress, but focus on the woman.

I am not the sort of woman who would wear high heels with a bathing suit. Let’s get that straight right now.

See the line where the sky meets the sea.

It’s critical that we know what we believe, no matter what we feel that we know what is true, no matter what we see.

I think we all do our own thing and we all have our own talents, but it’s good to know that you have a family tree of success so if you need the help on your journey to success then you can look around and see it around you.

He was constantly on me about the job that I was to do and the responsibility that I had upon the campus. And how I must be able to carry myself because people were looking.

It’s cool when people know you more, but I like people to treat me regular when they see me. I take pictures. I don’t really be big on people looking at me.

Peace demands the united efforts of us all. Who can foresee what spark might ignite the fuse?

For me, fashion is an expression of who I am right in that moment – so what you’re seeing is what I’m influenced by now.

Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open.