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I think that Americans, they love comfort more than Europeans. Americans created the T-shirt, the sweat pants, and they create the best sporting shoes.

Coming from Haiti and growing up in Brooklyn, there's a lot of European influence when I get dressed up. I wear a lot of fitted suits, elegant cuts; I think it's cool to mash up a lot of different looks.

All over Africa, people are wearing what Americans once wore and no longer want. Visit the continent, and you'll find faded remnants of secondhand clothing in the strangest of places.

Costume designers don't care about trends. They appreciate, above so many other qualities, that tailoring is everything, which is a mantra for the way I dress. Ladies: The most important thing in clothing is to find a good, inexpensive tailor, because clothes at the stores are made for bodies that are anomalies.

I think clothing is transformative. When you put something really beautiful on, you feel something. In so many ways, we're always playing a form of dress-up - it's just a grown-up, much chicer version of it. It's nice to be able to be whoever you want to be.

We've forgotten to respect clothes and consider who made them and where the material came from. We've been encouraged to buy things and, if we don't like them, bin them. When I grew up, we'd repair things or alter them.

The clothes back in those days were made so much better than clothes are today. They actually took time to make clothes to fit a woman's body. Today they make clothes that fit sizes, so it stretches to fit this and that.

Tailoring your clothes makes all the difference.

I've always aligned myself with a more modern, European fit. I maintain that fit is the thing that makes or breaks an outfit. Good tailoring trumps designer and price any day.

I think the responsibility lies with the fashion world as a collective. We have to demand more variety.