Part of what was in the ether all around me growing up, until I was between 19 and 20, was a terrible, debilitating stutter. It was part of what made me very reclusive as a kid.

I learned quickly that if the student's perception is that you're not listening to them, and not understanding them, they discredit you.

I had this wonderful career and thought I would retire as a teacher.

Fashion was in a crisis up until the mid-'90s and, when it came out of the crisis, it was a very different place. It was a place that nurtured and cultivated young entrepreneurial designers.