Then I moved down to the Bowery to this building where Debbie Harry lived. It was there that I started combining some clothes for her and continued doing the art and photography.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
One of the first gardens I did outside the family was for the designer Hattie Carnegie. I was 23 then, and I went to her salon, but could not afford any of her dresses myself, though I loved them. Miss Carnegie suggested I do a garden in exchange for a coat and dress, and so I designed and planted a garden for her.
My older sister achieved her dream of being an artist. She's an illustrator living in Manhattan.
My mom modeled and made clothes, so I always had such an appreciation for design.
My work, in a certain way, got started in 1996 when I did an exhibition of thirteen paintings that were solely based on fashion imagery.
I brought a lot of my own pieces of clothes to the design room when I first met with the design team just so they could see what my style was like.
My mother did like to make clothes, and in I think the worst picture I've ever seen of myself - I must have been eight or nine - she'd dressed me in a matching t-shirt and Bermuda shorts ensemble which I think looked like somebody had thrown up all over it. I was so glad when that sewing machine stopped working, I have to say.
I got to grow up in an incredibly artistic family.
I didn't try and do fashion pictures. I tried to do portraits of girls wearing dresses.
I design some of my own clothes now.
Then I started to do furniture and interiors for a friend and just to get stuff in a magazine, and then slowly started to build up and started to doing exhibitions.