Being a rather second-rate actress, I finally thought, 'I'd rather be a designer.' I knew I could make things look good.
The building I most admire is the Doges Palace in Venice, both by day and by night. Looking at it from the lagoon, it resembles a floating kilim carpet. I love all the bridges which connect houses, people, gardens and palaces. I also love moats to isolate yourself. A ha-ha for secrecy, as in every English country garden.
The champagne tastes the same if you're sitting bolt upright or sunk back into a sofa, so you might as well be upright, because you look better.
I feel that, historically, the Art Deco period has the most resonance for me. As a person, it has to be the plucky Clara Bow, the heroine of American silent movies of the 1920s. She embodied feminine dressing mixed with men's style. All this then evolved into the exquisite style and simplicity of Coco Chanel.
I get up in the morning, look around, arrange and rearrange things, and imagine how I might like them to look. Why doesn't everybody?
From the age of five, I was organizing everybody's everything. If I didn't like the way it looked, I'd rearrange it. From a very early age, I saw life from my point of view.
