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.
I see myself as a true modernist. Even when I do a traditional gown, I give it a modern twist. I go to the past for research. I need to know what came before so I can break the rules.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I wanted to breathe new life into the timeless trend of past, present and future. These unique designs celebrate the bride and groom’s passage through their new life together.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 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.
We got a lot of letters of people who didn’t like them, like my own family who thought they were unnecessary and unpleasant and taking advantage of women in a sad situation – I never saw that. And I think that sometimes, you have to take a risk.
I love sportswear in my own weird way. Fashion is such a personal journey for me. I’m much more of a girl that’s a T-shirt, legging, layering kind of thing, and outerwear.
One thing about skating that I don’t think people focus on enough is the music factor. The music is a huge component of figure skating. It can dictate not only the choreography but the emotion. If it’s not the right music it can ruin a performance.
