They were clearly fashion accessories. And that's what they are now.

The hostesses in the '50s were hip to that.

Maybe you eat takeout - whatever - six nights a week. But on the seventh, maybe you have people over and have something really fancy - you've got to have an outfit.

One of the things I love about opera is that it's the combination of all the art forms, and certainly the world of fashion is a big deal in it.

The poetry and transgression that was so much of surrealism's anarchic force has been recruited into mainstream culture. It has been made commonplace by television and magazine merchandising, by computer games and Internet visuals, by film and MTV, by the fashion shoot.

fashion has a right to exist, because it permits people to define themselves over and over again.