Although my mother didn't necessarily approve of teenage girls wearing heels, she made an exception for me when I was 14 because she didn't want me to be self-conscious about my height - or to slouch.

I had to learn to sew when I was growing up, because nothing else fitted me.

As a designer, when someone wears my clothes, the biggest compliment I can receive is that the woman looks amazing because my designs have flattered her, not taken over her. I take that philosophy to heart myself each morning when I am getting ready for the day.

You can celebrate the female form in comfort. We left corsets behind in the dark ages, so why bring them back now?

My father was placid and easygoing. He owned a small shoe store where I helped out on Saturdays. I think he'd have been pleased if I'd made a career of working in the shoe store. But my mother was ambitious. She encouraged us to read books, and she pushed us toward a musical education.

When I was a kid, I read many of my mom's books. Sometimes, there were mysteries, but there were no delineations, and my mother never talked about book genres. Nor did we differentiate genres in school.

Always keep absorbing art and looking at paintings and reading books and watching movies in other languages, just getting to know the world at hand and the world of the past. It's important to keep absorbing the world and keep engaging with it, and often that means not thinking about movies and thinking about other things.

Someone from the family is always with me in England, and for me, that's the perfect life.