When was the last time you marvelled over something in fashion?
In August, when I finally went to the Fortuny Museum in Venice. Those fabrics, my gosh.
Where do you look for new ideas or voices in fashion?
I don’t look. I fall upon them. Like love: when you least expect it, there it is, right in front of you.
In this attention economy, what or who has won over your attention right now?
Honestly, my 17-year-old Jack Russell, Daisy. She is the queen. Her spunk and her Parisian elegance amaze me. A huge inspiration: Just keep going!
How do you think fashion can spark and sustain desire with so much else going on in the world?
I don’t think it can. Because there is too much of it, too fast—shallow and fleeting.
Do you have an industry story or experience that you have never talked about?
Yes, and I won’t now either. Discretion is chic.
Do trends still matter?
No. And that’s fashion’s fault. To keep up with the relentless demands of a too-fast cycle, designers keep mining the past, and present such a hodgepodge of eras that there isn’t a then and there isn’t a now. Everything is in fashion.
Who are your fashion heroes?
The people who do the hard and important work, like Kalpona Akter, a former child apparel factory worker who advocates for garment industry labour reforms in Bangladesh, and Liz Ricketts, co-founder of the Or Foundation, a Ghana-based nonprofit that fights fashion’s waste colonialism. Basically, all those trying to repair or stop the environmental and human damage carelessly created by the fashion industry. They are heroes, full stop.
What are you most curious to know about how designers work, how a collection comes together?
I’d like to know how much they are relying now on AI to design and market their products. I think the answer is: a lot.
What stands out as the most potentially disruptive influence on fashion in the near future?
AI, without question. Because it will mint billionaires who will shop without a conscience, facilitate overproduction, and kill creativity.
In what ways are you seeing progress in fashion mirroring progress in the wider world?
In the age of Globalisation, fashion has been slow to adapt to every change—it was late to the Chinese market, it was late to online retailing (by a decade or more), and it’ll be late to AI, I’m sure. For an industry that is supposed to reflect to society, it really doesn’t at all. Because, since the consolidation and corporatization of the business in the 1990s and early 2000s, it is run by hyper cautious tycoons and shareholders who are terrified of losing money, thus afraid of change. The only ones who are interesting, and of our times now, are small, founder-run independents such as Iris Van Herpen and Rick Owens. But they struggle, because the business is so dominated by the monster-sized groups.
If you could change one aspect of how we experience fashion today, what would it be?
I’d cut at least half the fashion shows from the fashion week calendars. Maybe more than half. Most do not show Fashion; they show clothes, and clothes don't require a splashy show in an epic event space halfway across town.
I’d also ban destination shows during fashion weeks and bring them all back to one setting, like the tents at the Louvre in the 1980s and in Bryant Park in the early 2000s. Make everyone present their collections in the same venue. They you see the offerings, rather than the decor. It’s a level playing field that is more honest, and it would be a pro-environment solution, because everyone doesn’t have to cross town in chauffeured-driven cars.
Tell us something surprising about how you got to where you are today?
I used to be an Elite model in the early 1980s in New York, Paris and Milan, and I modelled the FW 1982 Haute Couture collections for Italian Vogue.
What has been a highlight of your career so far?
When my first book, Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, landed on a New York Times bestseller list, and when Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams, a documentary about Salvatore Ferragamo that I wrote for the director Luca Guadagnino, premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2020. Both were pretty thrilling.
Is there any fashion show – no matter how far back – that you would have loved to attend?
Yves Saint Laurent’s debut at Dior in 1958, when he was 21. Former Los Angeles Times fashion editor Marylou Luther, who I know and have worked with, was there. I find that amazing. She’s 96 now. God bless her.
What three words or ideas might guide your professional growth through the coming year?
Focus, dedication, breathe.
Basically, what I do in yoga I must apply to everything.
What is one positive objective or goal that you would like to see the industry work towards?
Stop overproducing. AI can help with this. Use this technology for good. Please. A close second, which is related: Pay everyone in the supply chain a living wage.
If you could make any fashion wish come true, what would it be?
A Dolly Parton show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute.
This interview has been lightly edited.
