I create a look, and I create a style.

I feel that my ideas of beauty have been given very strong backing by Botticelli and a few others: Slender hands, long neck, long limbs - look at Nefertiti. She was very teensy-weensy with a long neck and wide-spaced eyes.

American women mean a great deal to me. They're such lost souls, particularly the women of my generation. And women need so much help. They never have anyone to turn to. I help them understand how they can look better, how to do this, do that, get a job. And they're very trusting. Like little lost kids.

Most of our models have just walked in off the streets, although I also find them on countless trips to Europe - particularly Scandinavia. I operate by instinct. It's a process I cannot explain, but the prettiest girl on the block is not always the best model.

I live in a wonderful world of make-believe. A world of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. A world of Winnie the Pooh and Edward Bear. Things like that. Wonderful things. Funny things.

I never worry about fat people worrying about thin people, because slender people bury the dead.