“I’m not a chef. But I’m passionate about food – the tradition of it, cooking it, and sharing it.”
“Don’t worry about what’s cool and what’s not cool. Authenticity is what’s cool.”
“At the end of the day, you can’t compete with Mother Nature. If you’ve got a great tomato, just a pinch of sea salt is all you need.”
“People who devote themselves to a life of style are admirable.”
“When I was little, I had a Norwegian babysitter – and that was my introduction to both regular and salty licorice. We all know the ordinary version, but the salty kind is a favorite candy throughout Northern Europe. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine that I have to try not to keep around because I’ll eat the entire bag in one go.”
“There’s a reason good fabrics have a cost. They’re done with good quality to last.”
“The way I cut my clothing… it is about empowerment and loving the curves of the body.”
“Creative burnout and physical burnout is real. I mean, there are moments when I get home – after overseeing, you know, almost 16 collections a year – where I can’t move.”
“I like to vegetate when on vacation given my busy schedule when I’m at work.”
“I want to make things of quality. I’m a big believer in handmade, tactile, crafted pieces. I want to keep that tradition alive.”
“I cherish my time off and the solitude that comes along with it.”
“To be able to buy a plant and plant it, that’s a luxury to me.”
“Fashion is killing women’s body image of themselves.”
“I’m quite a tuxedo junkie, I collect them all year round.”
“Fashion has a dark side – it’s not all runways and lipstick and fishtail gowns.”
“As a designer, I’m not interested in trend.”
“Some of the best kitchen discoveries come about through total kitchen disasters.”
“Authenticity from a person and product is absolutely essential.”
“Food is everything. Food, friends, family: Those are the most important things in life.”
“Obviously, I like very beautiful food, because I think as delicious as food has to taste, it also has to look very beautiful – the process of presentation is very important.”
“If you’re entering into fashion in an original way, you have to know your craft, and you have to know your history. You have to be obsessively dedicated. You have to be relentless about making it happen. It doesn’t take a bank. It takes passion, love, timing, and luck.”
“I don’t wear flip-flops, so my casual shoe is a Brooks Brothers tuxedo slipper!”
“I personally love grilling, but it’s a 15- to 20-minute commitment in entertaining.”
“Chefs have the ego of an actor and fashion designer combined.”
“With Zac Posen gowns, it’s like making an ornate pastry. Then, sometimes, it’s just great to have the perfect chicken soup or consomme. And that’s Brooks Brothers.”
“A great trick for frying is to put a popcorn kernel in the oil, and when it pops, you’re ready to fry.”
“Listen, I’m not a rich kid. I’m a cultured kid; I’m very rich in culture.”
“Taking sartorial risks and not following other people is what makes you stand out.”
“I have a garden, and I collect different heirloom seeds from different neighbors.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being pretty.”
“I try to push design boundaries using new draping and fabric manipulation techniques every time I approach a new design.”
“The practice of patience in crafting and process is a virtue that needs to come back.”
“When you make and drape clothing, the scissors are your tool. What can I say about them? They’re my babies. And you have to take care of them correctly. You have to have them sharpened, and you can’t use them for any other material.”
“There’s something very old-fashioned and luxurious to have a pair of pants and jacket made to your needs and measurements.”
“I’m a pretty controlled and disciplined person, but my real vice is buying plants and food shopping.”
“The biggest thing politically within fashion is that the clothing should be displayed on different body shapes.”
“I don’t believe in one ideal beauty.”
“Everybody wants to be a star right now, to be heard, to have a voice, so you have to give the confidence for people to have that ability – and give them the wardrobe to become a star.”
“So many people are following fashion now. It’s become fashion-tainment.”
“I want to be a major force.”
“There is no reason for me to show my collection in New York, because it’s not about craft and technique there.”
“I am a compulsive and concise shopper.”
“I am totally unattached to material items.”
“I have so many fashion mistakes, but that’s part of being in fashion. I think the people that you see make the most mistakes are usually the best dressers.”
“There’s not one major greatest influence on my career. It would be film and great artists and great imagineers – Jim Henson, Walt Disney, Charlie Chaplin, people who understand the joy of the imagination.”
“I love creative people.”
“I started cooking out of middle school depression.”
“New York ladies all look immaculate.”
“One of my goals and dreams is to work in film in the future.”
“To me, being in fashion is about your work, not about facilitating a lifestyle.”
“To me, the more dialogue amongst creative types, the better. It keeps people on their toes, and competition is healthy.”
“You can’t market or commercialize feminism as an entity. One has to be careful. I aim to be about powerful women in my clothing.”
“I have multiple lines and am licensing multiple projects, but I am still hands-on. It feels special. I don’t take it for granted.”
“I’m a SoHo born-and-raised kid. So my parents dragged me to lots of museums, and for birthdays and any kind of celebration, we’d go to the theater.”
“At the end of the day, you’re not defined, I don’t believe, by your financial means. That doesn’t make you a better person or a smarter person.”
“I go online at night and I order flowers, rare flowers, and then they come in the mail. That’s my fashion detox.”
“One of my fantasies is to produce ‘Auntie Mame’ as a play.”
“Beyond fashion, I think that culture has a side where they love to shoot you up like a clay pigeon and then take out their rifles. I lived that, and I got to see the perspective from up in the sky.”
“Fashion is a pay-to-play game; this is an industry. At a certain point, you must bridge a gap where you are supporting the reviewer, the publication, and that is very real.”
“I try to be the best that I can be and the best to the people that work for me.”
“I feel very fortunate that I make everything I wear head to toe every day.”
“I always end up in the kitchen at restaurants. At events or parties, too, I like to see where my food is prepared or made. I like the theater of it.”
“I don’t cook ribs in my own home. I let my dad cook the ribs. He’s from St. Louis, Missouri. I like to use a grill, but that’s my dad’s domain.”
“I like films that probe emotional questions and inspire you to get creative and get writing, get draping, painting, cooking, whatever that thing is where you have that kind of output.”
“The first time I went to the Met Ball, I was 16. I was an intern there and saved up to buy a staff ticket to the party. That was my favorite experience going. It wasn’t the red carpet; it was the experience of being there for the first time.”
“I’m interested in the opportunity that people can self-create using social media and the online dialogue. Before social media, you needed to have a lot of personal funds to break through to hire the right people and build a presence to start a line. It gives the opportunity and platform for people to be discovered.”
“I was very interested in theatre, so my first love of fashion comes from costume, and I think that’s pretty clear within my work and the level of theatricality.”
“When I first got to Brooks Brothers, my mom told me she remembered how upsetting it was trying to find professional clothes in the eighties. Suits would either be over-stylized or frumpy, so she said, ‘Make sure it’s tailored properly.’”
“I garden in my Brooks Brothers pajamas and straw hat.”
“I truly believe that you can’t be a successful business unless there are hiccups. That American mentality of picking yourself up, brushing your shoulders off, and then really going for it makes you 100 times stronger and smarter.”
“I think, mind over body, it’s real.”
“I believe that creativity is an important human experience and element in the same way as sleeping, eating, having sex.”
“There are issues that are being questioned that are fundamentally upsetting to me, deeply: immigration, funding for the arts, Planned Parenthood, and women’s rights. These are just issues that are very close to my heart, and I use my own private voice and funds to fight for them and in support of them.”
“Since the beginning of my career, I have publicly dressed and represented women of all sizes, of all colors. And that’s a big part of who I am and what I want to give to the world.”
“The most significant pieces for me are the ones that come from my drapings. It’s emotional because they are created by my hand and then become a collaborative process in the atelier.”
“When I’m on the road for fashion shows, I love room service. I think it’s one of the greatest things in the world. I usually like to keep it simple with soup, but my big indulgence is French fries or chicken fingers.”
“I am a Florenz Ziegfeld fanatic.”
“I eat everything, but I moderate; I try to be semiconscious. I don’t eat pasta every day, although people who follow my Instagram think I do.”
“I think it’s really important to try to eat seasonally as much as possible. It helps put people in touch with what’s happening locally and with nature.”
“I was not a young fashion victim. I really had an idea of what I liked in fashion and how I dressed.”
“I’m definitely planning ahead for a brand that spans the universe – a Zac Posen universe.”
“I went through the workroom at Central Saint Martins in London, which is the most competitive workroom of a design school in the world. Very high creativity, very conceptual, very international, age-diverse and cutthroat – people who have master degrees reapplying into a foundation there is just wild to me to launch their careers.”
“I was born and raised on ‘Singin’ in the Rain.’ It’s in my work. It’s in me.”
“I just think when you are dressing a celebrity, for me, I’m hopefully adding a moment. I always say, ‘What role do you want to play?’ when we start a fitting.”
“For me, I’ll unwind at the end of the day by soaking in Epsom salts. It’s the routine I prefer for coming down after crazy days.”
“I have to bring my A-Game 24/7, between creating, draping, and overseeing a myriad of different brands.”
“As a designer, I always want to put out to a larger public. I truly believe that all bodies are beautiful, and that’s what makes our world exciting.”
“Sometimes, late at night on the set of ‘Project Runway,’ I’ve been known to pop an interpretive dance.”
“As a little boy, my mom would bake with me on the weekends – that was our time together.”
“I think that maybe growing up and being dyslexic early on, the visual quality of cookbooks specifically was something very enticing to me.”
“As an object itself, to me, books today are such a rare entity – I want mine to be something where, if left on the kitchen table, a child could pick it up. It can visually tell a story.”
“As one grows their company and brand, you have to learn to be a leader, and there’s no formula.”
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