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Costumes say a lot about a character. When it came to 'Palo Alto,' it was important for me that the kids didn't look perfect. In most teen movies today, all of the clothes are expensive. I remember wearing a lot of dirty vintage clothes.

I used to work for a management consulting company, so I dressed differently - business casual, probably a lot of things from Banana Republic. My wardrobe now is definitely more expensive, but I always dress for the occasion.

My sister and I were not allowed expensive clothes. We so badly wanted these Fila sneakers as kids, but my mother took us down to the flea market and got imitation ones. Look at the early Destiny's Child videos. You'll see.

In my early days in Hollywood I tried to be economical. I designed my own clothes, much to my mother's distress.

I grew up in a small town in Washington State, so I wasn't really aware of costume design as a career growing up, but I loved clothes. I remember I saved all my money, and the first thing that I bought was a white blazer, which was to the horror to my parents. But I have always had a strange connection with clothing.

I've bought clothes based on record covers. Particularly from the formative music that turned me onto it in the first place when I was a kid, with the Beatles and the Small Faces. A lot of those Sixties soul artists were in really sharp sharkskin or mohair suits, and Motown artists looked amazing.

For the kind of thing that we were showing, the budget was sufficient. As we were speaking of in Haiti, we had not done that before in exactly this form and we had to have costumes for it.

I always loved Michelle Kwan's outfits. Most of them were designed by Vera Wang, and they're just so simple, but the fabric that they used and the way that it was sewn together look so elegant and rich. You could tell that time had been put into it. It wasn't just another spandex, stucco-covered costume.

My fancy dress costume of choice is... something 1920s or 30s, when there was still so much elegance and attention to detail. An excuse for ultimate dressing-up indulgence.

Some artists are able to pull off a very form-fitting, painted-on look that's very modern, but I have actually come around to embracing the idea that that these costumes are more like athletic uniforms than high-tech skin suits.