“People get very trapped where they are. When they hear “fashion” they get intimidated, particularly at the upper end because it’s so elitist. If you can bring your own concept or your viewpoint and translate it not down but out, then you’re really successful in the truest sense.”

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.

I started at the very highest level so the upper end is something I know very well. I know it instinctively. But all the years I was designing, it frustrated me that I could reach so few women.

I like the gritty parts of fashion, the design, the studio, the pictures.

It is not what you hear, it is where you listen from within yourself that gives meaning to the message.

Common sense is almost as omniscient as God.

Truth persuades by teaching, but does not teach by persuading.

We never love a person, but only qualities.

Does not Eternity appear dreadful to you. I often get to thinking of it and it seems so dark to me that I almost wish there was no Eternity. To think that we must forever live and never cease to be. It seems as if Death would be a relief to so endless a state of existence.

It is the greatest manifestation of power to be calm.

Beauty is not caused. It is.

Instead of seeking new landscapes, develop new eyes.