“I love a black wedding dress.”

The intricate engraving, fine lines, beading and milgrain accents echo an era defined by elaborate embellishments.

Bridal is always about who you are as a person and as a woman and as a lover and as a mate. People always ask me how a woman can pick just one dress. And the funny thing is they always know.

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.

It’s nice to get off the couch, throw the clothes on, add a little make-up and go back to work, every once in a while.

Goals are visions and dreams with work clothes on.

I don’t have a problem with my body. I’m not just going to strip off all my clothing, but if the part calls for it and I don’t think there’s any way round, I’m absolutely fine.

You know, when a man is raped you never hear about what he was wearing.

God is our clothing, that wraps, clasps and encloses us so as to never leave us.

I wear my sort of clothes to save me the trouble of deciding which clothes to wear.

Nothing earth-shattering has happened in men’s fashion. How much can you do with men’s clothes?

I probably wasted a couple of thousand dollars on some dumb-ass clothes.