I see potential in everything. It's about opening your mind to what you can do to the garment: because they're cheap, you can cut them or stitch them, and if you stuff it up, it's fine - it's only two dollars.
Furnishing a home is no different than going into the studio and making music. You want to make sure you've pared down all the extra details so that in the end, every stitch has a context uniquely yours.
I was 230 kg, with a size 81 waist. I couldn't buy anything off the shelf and needed more than one tailor to measure and stitch my clothes.
I've never been on that side - being reviled by hundreds of thousands of people online. I guess that experience was really terrible, but it's just added another stitch to the tapestry of my character, so I've seen life from both sides now. I've been beloved and reviled.
You look for the way something is built. You see a Prada bag and you look at the stitching at the back. If it's a fake one, then they make it really cheap. If it's a real Prada bag and I will look at it, I will count every single stitch and make sure they are exact distance apart.
You'd never look at a Rembrandt and say, 'That's just wood and canvas and paint - how much?!' It's all about how many people want it. It works on a pair of jeans as well - they're just material and stitching, and as soon as you walk out of the shop, they're worth nothing.
We don't do things we aren't good at by nature. I wouldn't play basketball because I'm only 5' 1". Find what you enjoy - whether it's racing, flying a helicopter, being a doctor, or stitching clothes together. Once you've done that, you have the passion you need.
I think of the brain as a computational device: It has a bunch of little components that perform calculations on some small aspect of the problem, and another part of the brain has to stitch it all together, like a tapestry or a quilt.
I collect things called 'samplers' which are Victorian pieces of needlework usually done by children in a workhouse to show that they have a skill which can be used in service, stitching household linen or that kind of thing. I think they're very humble and very beautiful.
I didn't finish my dress until about three days before my wedding - I had the flu and was stitching it from my bed. And the tulle came back from India all brown. We had to wash it for hours, but that didn't dissuade me from wearing it.
