It's not about me, it's about you, the customer. And if I am effective in making what I do about you, and I can enhance you and elevate you, you will support me forever.
Very early on in this journey, I uniquely found not just an aesthetic, but also a voice. I found the ability to communicate with people, which has turned out for me to be a far more meaningful platform. To talk to them about not just what's on their body, but also on their minds.
If every shoe store in America stops selling shoes, no one's going to go barefoot for 15, 20 years. No one needs shoes, for the most part. We have shoes; our problem is what to do with them.
I've come to realize nobody needs what we sell. There's hardly a woman who needs another pair of black shoes.
None of what I do is political. My messages are social and human messages. In many cases, they've been politicized but they are so much bigger than that.
I had left the runway because I had come to believe that it was questionably relevant and appropriate, because we were creating clothes that, to a large degree, never ended up making it to the stores. And the runway was being seen in markets where those clothes weren't available.
I work out with my trainer at 5 A. M. three times per week and I also skip dessert - most of the time.
You can't build a fashion business with a short-term perspective, unless you're prepared to make investments that you know are not going to pay dividends immediately.
In the early years I had no real plan. I figured it out as I went, which is easier to do when you don't have a lot of staff and overhead. Back then I believed my job was just to create great-looking shoes. That wasn't true. I learned that the shoes needed to fit, be comfortable, and not fall apart.
What people are consuming is what things represent. It's people defining themselves through what they wear.
Every morning, I look in my closet and say, 'What do I wish was here?' It's looking for what's not there and making it available.
My bedroom was my executive office. Buyers came to my apartment and that's where they saw the collections.
I've realized that people come to the brand not just for the products we make, but because of what we stand for.
When I was younger I would often go to nightclubs and sit in the best-lit corner to look at what people chose to wear, or I'd go out and around the city - to places where people express their sense of what they think looks good. So, I get a sense of that, and then I try to interpret it.
When you go public, the value equation of your company changes immediately. It is valued on anticipated earnings.