It takes a long time to get a reputation for quality. There are people in our industry, they're basically copiers. Look at the cars on the streets. They all look alike. But if you put quality into a product, then have it validated, you have huge credibility.
I'm always looking over my shoulder, needing to stay ahead of the game.
The first thing you see when you walk into a store is color.
I consider a merchant someone who has a certain intuition and instinct, and - very important - knows how to run a business, knows the numbers.
What matters is hard work, and emotional intelligence.
I hire a lot of waiters, waitresses. Someone who's successful has a background that's not predictable.
People put 'study abroad' on their resume. I actually like when they don't study abroad because that means they aren't entitled.
I don't size up their grades or their board scores. Because in America today, that's just an advantage certain people have. I size up the give and take, the speed of thinking, what I perceive as ambition. I say, 'Tell me about your high school jobs.' And I love people who worked in coffee shops who were waiters and waitresses.
I like to prove things wrong.
I'm an agent of change all day long, and I want to meet other people like that.
I'm looking for best practices constantly. Apple has beautiful design, beautiful product, incredibly functional. But mostly it's about picking product, getting behind it, marketing it and introducing it to a customer. What they've done just inspires me.
If you don't get trained for your SATs in America today, you are at a disadvantage. Training is expensive and a lot of kids don't get trained, perhaps. So I also identify with the kid or the person who has grown up in environments like I've grown up in.
People like consistency. Whether it's a store or a restaurant, they want to come in and see what you are famous for.
Creativity runs on automatic, no matter what's happening in other parts of my life. I can't help myself. It's been in me, and it evolves in me over the years. It's a condition in me.
A merchant is someone who figures out how to select, how to smell, how to identify, how to feel, how to time, how to buy, how to sell, and how to hopefully have two plus two equal six.
I always wanted to have my own company. It was a psychological issue.
I would like Madewell jeans to be the Levi's of its generation.
I look at companies as price-players or quality-players. The only way to go with J.Crew was quality.
I loved the fact that if you put goods on the floor, you could watch them sell.
When I started at Bloomingdale's as a buyer, Alexander's was a discounter across the street, and every time Alexander's had something that we had at Bloomingdale's, we'd have to meet price. I didn't really want to be in a business where I had no control over my inventory, the value of my inventory.
