What Women Want

When I was 4 years old, I was already talking about becoming a designer. I'm not exactly sure where I got that notion. It was probably something I saw on television. It seemed like a very glamorous life.

In my second year at Parsons, I got a job at Charlie's Girls with Erica Elias. I was in heaven. That was probably the best job I could have ever landed because Erica gave me my very own design room to work in. I had sewing ladies. I had a draper. It had five different divisions where I could do swimwear, sportswear and sweaters. I learned how to do everything.

In 1981, I had the idea of doing my own clothing line, but I didn't know how to go about it. I had some friends who made jewelry and were going to try to sell it at a trade show. I made five pieces of clothing, and they asked me to share a booth with them. To my delight, I got orders from Macy's and Bloomingdale's (and was featured in an advertisement in The New York Times). The man who owned the company I worked for saw the ad and said if I didn't stop, he would fire me. So I got fired.

That's how I started my business. I had a loftlike apartment, so I worked out of a little corner of my living room. One morning I woke up, opened my bedroom door and saw boxes and racks everywhere. I thought, I can't live like this anymore. So I rented half a floor on 39th Street and moved my office there.

In 1990, I had been in the business for 10 years. All my friends at the time worked in fashion.

They got together to encourage me that it was the right time for me to take the plunge and consider producing a show. This was at the height of 1980s "power dressing" companies like Chanel, Lacroix and Versace. Competing against them was scary— I had to find my own voice.