Inspiration: A needle buried under a mountain of rubble.

Inspiration is so easy and yet so hard. Good weather, a beautiful piece of music,perhaps someone passing just beyond your periphery. It takes so little and yet one must be totally attuned to ones inner compass and the world around you. The glass needs to be half full , not leaking out of a hairline crack.

Working on a new collection, the Fall 2009 season, is a time when we try to get pregnant with a belly full of ideas. Even one healthy idea complete with 10 fingers and toes and hopefully a head complete with a mind. My method is to go on a book buying binge. Anything to do with art or culture, fashion from the past or present, anything that allows me to close my eyes and start to see. Moments in time, like now cause the clouds and darkness to descend but night vision glasses or the strongest inner torch are my weapons against the abyss. The gravitational pull towards utter blackness is the hardest thing to avoid. Newspapers and magazines are poisonous to my psyche, so I seek out people , places and things that cast a glimmer of light. In the light resides possibility. In possibility rests hope and in hope lies the road map to creation. Traveling to a far off place for many is a sure fire journey to a fresh vision. To my thinking, the problem with escape is that your bags are loaded down with the you you're trying to leave at home. I choose to stay and seek a warm , well lighted place within.

Though this inspiration is chiefly directed towards a creative end, it also has everything to do with ones desire and ability to face each successive day and the obstacles that over face us . Being creative in life has a direct effect on how creative we will be in our work. One cannot be separated from the other. That's what makes getting up in the morning so challenging. That idea of being born alone and dying alone also pertains to going through each day alone. Being supported by friends, families and lovers makes it easier , but the road is still solely yours. I never feel as alone as when I’m faced with a blank piece of paper staring me down, waiting to be filled.

Many people don’t feel the need to find inspiration. It’s considered irrelevant or too much of a luxury; one that is no longer affordable. Better to revisit old hits or misses and cobble together something that resembles newness. The same thing recast with an exclamation point instead of a comma. Tearing out pages of others efforts and tacking them to your wall …the old “possession is 9/10ths of the law “excuse. The most creative soul search is the buying it in a store and sticking your label in it. The number of people who play these creative games would shock and appall many of you, but that has become the rule and no longer the exception.

Themes are a popular route. Cultures from before, mythic characters or periods of fecundity sends some designers into a realm of the senses. The world of the pre-Raphaelite courtesan or the society beauty who lives and dies for fashion . Often, rich visual feasts are mined . Other times redundant periods of the near past are used as the dead horse to continue flogging. Whatever the case, I find specific times, place or people too often fodder for imagery too easily recognized or too dated to qualify as modern or valid for the present.

To be brutally frank, One can ask the question,” What the hell were they thinking to trot that down a runway?” I have no more right than the next kitten to pass judgement on another’s method to their madness. I only know that it isn’t easy and if it were everyone would consider themselves a designer. …. BUT EVERYBODY DOES.