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

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.

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.

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.

I think artists are aware that talking gives a songwriter so much material. If they just tell us what’s happening, it’s so much easier for us to write a song that’s specific to them.

Just because you’re an artist doesn’t give you an excuse to be an asshole.

I want to be real. I want to be a real person. That’s what an artist is. An artist has to be honest. Without honesty, there’s nothing.

When I started, I was 23 years old directing my own music videos; I’m co-producing on my album; I’m hands-on with everything. I’m more than just a pretty boy: I’m an artist. I’m not saying I’m a hip-hop music artist, I’m an artiste.

Being an artist is this kind of occupation in which you have to make people care about your obsession.

An artist could have a really big relationship, and then they break up, and any song after that, people are automatically going to assume that that song is about that person.

The artist is not a man who describes, but a man who feels.

And this is what was fascinating to me about ‘The Help’; they were ordinary people who did extraordinary things.