“I was stigmatized by being a bridal designer for a long time. I am amazed I have been able to move beyond it. I had really all but given up trying, but I did it because it was my lifelong dream.”

It’s hard to juggle being a businessperson with being a creative person. You have to organize yourself – PR needs me for PR, and the licensing division needs me for licensing, the bridal people need me for bridal.

It’s for all the women who embrace my aesthetic, but can’t afford a Vera Wang dress. If women can get anything out of it – a little bit of me or a lot of me, that’s what’s important.

I was a total fashion insider who became an outsider when I did bridal.

My normal routine is pretty much putting out fires all day.

The key is falling in love with something, anything. If your heart’s attached to it, then your mind will be attached to it.

I love a black wedding dress.

The funny thing is that I’m the girl who no one sees at the beach. Ask anyone who’s traveled with me. Normally, I’m in so many layers, I look like Lawrence of Arabia!

I brought color to bridal. There was one whole season of blush. If you think about the bareness, the illusion (fabric), the corsets that I did in bridal, they were trends in ready-to-wear, too.

I brought color to bridal. There was one whole season of blush. If you think about the bareness, the illusion (fabric), the corsets that I did in bridal, they were trends in ready-to-wear, too.

I brought color to bridal. There was one whole season of blush. If you think about the bareness, the illusion (fabric), the corsets that I did in bridal, they were trends in ready-to-wear, too.

A woman is never sexier than when she is comfortable in her clothes.

A woman is never sexier than when she is comfortable in her clothes.

Just because you’re from a city ten miles outside of St. Paul. It doesn’t mean you don’t read magazines, or the incredible Internet, and what’s going on in the world. I never, ever take a client, or women, for granted.

Just because you’re from a city ten miles outside of St. Paul. It doesn’t mean you don’t read magazines, or the incredible Internet, and what’s going on in the world. I never, ever take a client, or women, for granted.

A woman is never sexier than when she is comfortable in her clothes.

Just because you’re from a city ten miles outside of St. Paul. It doesn’t mean you don’t read magazines, or the incredible Internet, and what’s going on in the world. I never, ever take a client, or women, for granted.

There was no relationship between a wedding dress and fashion. There was no good taste, either. I realized that I could make an impression in terms of changing and readdressing the whole industry of bridal.

The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.

Let’s be realistic, how many people are buying a $2,000 skirt? I love to design things that people can actually buy. I’m staggered by what a boot costs today.

To me, eyewear goes way beyond being a prescription. It’s like makeup. It’s the most incredible accessory. The shape of a frame or the color of lenses can change your whole appearance.

You have been given everything you need to design the life you desire. You’ve got this.

Men think that self-sacrifice is the most charming of all the cardinal virtues for women, and in order to keep it in healthy working order, they make opportunities for its illustration as often as possible.

I’m only waiting for Lindsay Lohan’s fashion collection to come out. Ten years from now, there may be no real designers left.

I was struggling to find a way to make evening clothes more deconstructed. I like to think that I translated the Latin concept in a more modern way. I don’t think that I was that literal.