Working on fashion shows, you work with the designer and try to read his brain - what was in the creative process, what images did he have in his head?
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I asked my designer friend, Sam Klemick, to make a headdress for me, drawing inspiration from 1920s headpieces, Athena and Joan of Arc. Before each show, I have this quiet meditative moment where I put the headdress on and gather my thoughts and strength.
I became a fashion designer by accident. I loved to make portrait drawings when I was a teenager, and from that came the interest in what people were wearing and why they were wearing it.
I always look at the work of fashion designers as if they were art.
Providing, meaning to a mass of unrelated needs, ideas, words and pictures - it is the designer's job to select and fit this material together and make it interesting.
When you see a fashion show, you see those seven minutes of what was six months of tedious work of, you know, going up an inch and down an inch, changing it from one shade of red to another shade of red. So it's the same as any creative process. The result is what we see, but the process is really labor intensive and work.
I think the job of an original designer is to inspire.
When a designer creates, he looks at the world around him.
If one lazily thinks of what a fashion designer might do if he's going to conquer cinema next, it would be taking the opportunity to display his fashion sensibilities.
As a fashion designer, I was always aware that I was not an artist, because I was creating something that was made to be sold, marketed, used, and ultimately discarded.
Whether it was working on theatre sets or stage lighting, I didn't realize most all of the skills I was exposed to were going to come in handy later on when I became a designer.