I think one thing I've learned over the years is just that you're not going to ever please everyone, and the most important person to please is yourself.
Jeremy Scott
I'm very organic in nature with my creativity. It just kind of wraps around me, or it's a moment I have, a click of inspiration. It's never calculated.
There probably wasn't a day that went by in high school that I wasn't bullied either physically or verbally. It made me stronger, and I knew I had to stay steadfast to what I believed in.
I think because of the eccentricity of my work and how I dress, people expect me to be bouncing off the walls. But that's just not how I am.
I have a nostalgia for the years I was growing up and experiencing new things for the first time - so the late '80s and early '90s are always fascinating to me. Those were the times that I was being informed about a lot of my tastes, and so the memories are fused with a lot of emotion.
I don't care if the critics don't like me. I want to be the people's designer, like Diana was the people's princess.
The McDonald's icon of the colours and the golden arch, for me, resonates as one of the most iconic images ever.
Fashion should have a transgressive nature; it can make you feel like someone else, give you heightened emotion. It should bring you joy and uplift you.
I don't really shop unless it's thrift.
I softened in my old age.
When I was born, my family was so poor that there was no money to buy food. So the church bought groceries for us - there wasn't any kind of privilege.
I think about my friends all the time when I'm designing. That's always an arbiter. Would Katy wear this? Would Rihanna wear this? Would Sia wear it? Would Miley wear it?
When I had no place to live and I had no place to sleep - and I did sleep in the Metro - I held steadfast to the fact that I had a dream, a reason why I'm doing this... that it was bigger than this moment.
My country is in the toilet. And when my country is in the toilet, the world is in the toilet.
I fell in love with L.A. To me, it is the most quintessentially American city.
Sometimes people have questioned whether I was making fun of the industry or just at myself. I'm just trying to raise a smile. Clothes aren't meant to be worshipped at a church altar.
McDonald's, Barbie - they're all icons, recognizable from London to Timbuktu.
I started at Moschino Oct. 31 or Nov. 1, 2013, and now I go back and forth between Milan and Los Angeles, where I live.
I'm a very normal person with a very even keel.
A lot of my collections are informed by nostalgia. I think that's because I loved clothes early on. I remember, at maybe age five, being concerned about what I wore, right down to the underwear.
I love all these things where proportions have been changed and altered.
I think fashion takes itself way too seriously. It's just fashion, people. It's just clothes. It should be frivolous and fun. You're not meant to see it as church and pray to a blouse.
I was Hillary in '08. I love Obama, but I was Hillary first, so I was happy to be back there with her again.
When Jackie Kennedy wanted to wear her favourite European designers, she was told no. She had to start working with brands like Adolfo, who had to create Chanel knock-offs because that's what she wanted to wear.
I've always felt like an outsider, and I'll probably continue to always feel like an outsider. Hopefully that's a good thing. I feel like I approach things differently than other designers.
I'd be a pop star. Although, I was once sat front row at a Rihanna concert when she came down to the audience and sat on my lap, pointed the microphone towards my mouth, and I couldn't sing a line.
Being pure in my voice has always served me the best. Anytime I've tried to hide my light under a bushel, it's never done me any good.
I grew up on a farm and didn't have connections, and I had a dream that I believed in, and I felt passionate about it, so if I can instill hope into somebody too with the film, that's what I most want.
I really don't see little girls growing up and thinking, 'Oh, I'm going to morph myself so I look like Barbie.'
There are so many serious things in the world; I just choose not to be one of them.
I think when people think of something as basic, they think that it's boring.
Madonna is the ultimate pop star of all time, hands down. She wrote the playbook for it. There is no female pop star - and probably few men today, for that matter - who are not indebted to her in one way or another for her contributions to the industry.
If Michelle Obama had stepped out in an outrageously priced jacket by an Italian designer, heads would have rolled. People would have said it was deplorable.
There have been a lot of challenges, but I'm still standing on my own, and it's quite an achievement knowing that I own my own business and created my own success through hard work and vision.
I always grew up watching things transform, and a lot of that was what we would call trash.
I feel like we have to fight for art.
'What if this funny-looking youngster from Missouri is talented after all?' I think it was a nice place to grow up, but I'm glad I don't live there anymore.
I'm fully aware, fully on, and fully kind of designing everything that goes on with me. Anything that's happening is definitely on my table.
It was here in L.A., before 'I Kissed a Girl' and all that. She stopped me and told me she was a huge fan and that she was a singer and that one day she hoped that I would dress her. I ended up dressing her for her record release.
One thing I have that the majority of other designers don't is humor. That's distinctly my approach, and it was distinctly Franco Moschino's, too.
Posterity is something I'm a big fan of because that's how you leave your legacy. Not to sound pompous, but just to be truthful.
I want my clothes to have a life and then end up in a secondhand store, where some cool girl discovers them 20 years later. If the runway or red carpet is the only life clothes have, it's sad.
I get love from fans in a big enough dosage that it acts as a shield, and I would not sacrifice that love in order to please the industry.
For me, actresses are constantly chameleons, and so they are taking a backseat to their own personality. I don't feel like we're trying to show off their personality as much as let them be a blank slate. It's precisely the reason why I dress more musicians than I do actresses.
The main thing I hope people see is how passionate I am about my work, and I know people talk about it, but I do work really hard on my stuff, and it means a lot to me.
I'm an introverted extrovert. My job sets me apart, but I'm not hammy and don't need attention.
I've taken a look back at my body of work and tried to deduce an essence, capturing aspects that reoccur. Reflecting on your own product can be difficult yet enthralling.
I feel my role is to push boundaries. I don't like things to be safe and sedentary. So controversy is the cross I have to bear.
I ultimately do still feel like an outsider, and I do feel, actually, I'm more in the world of music because of how much I participate with musicians - in all aspects, not just clothes.
I love MTV, and I love the VMAs. There's no award show like it. It really is the coolest award show, hands down.
