Wearing clothes should be a personal narrative of emotion. I always respond to fashion in an emotional way.

People love fashion exhibits because they can fantasize. They can respond to a dress even if they can never wear a dress like that.

The happiest moments of my childhood were spent on my grandmother's front porch in Durham, N.C., or at her sister's farmhouse in Orange County, where chickens paraded outside the kitchen's screen door and hams were cured in the smokehouse.

I don't tear down. I prefer to build up.