Donna Karan

Accent your positive and delete your negative.

My mother was a working woman, and I was alone a lot. So I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.

Design is a constant challenge to balance comfort with luxe the practical with the desirable.

Originally, back in 1992, DKNY started because I couldn't find a pair of jeans. I also wanted to dress my teenage daughter Gabby. So it was the perfect street wardrobe: jeans, anoraks, jumpsuits, boyfriend jackets, sweaters, skirts and dresses. Then DKNY grew into an entire lifestyle concept, including tailored clothes you wear to work.

Everything I do is a matter of heart, body and soul.

It's really easy to get colors right. It's really hard to get black - and neutrals - right. Black is certainly a color but it's also an illusion.

I believe in comfort. If you don't feel comfortable in your clothes, it's hard to think of anything else.

You don't have that much choice in your life, which is one of the big lessons I've learned. I was going to be a designer whether I wanted to be a designer or not.

Evening is a time of real experimentation. You never kind of want to look the same way.

It used to be only yoga, but now I do Pilates as well; I feel like I need the balance.

Delete the negative; accentuate the positive.

We've come a long way. Power dressing now is designed to let the woman inside us come through.

I've always been about the power of a woman - accentuating the positive, deleting the negative, whether you're talking her body, her voice or her leadership.

Scheduling me is not easy, as most people know, because once I start, I don't stop.

I love building spaces: architecture, furniture, all of it, probably more than fashion. The development procedure is more tactile. It's about space and form and it's something you can share with other people.

Basically, I was a hippie and still am a flower child.

My daughter Gabby very kindly once said that she thinks I was a better mother because I was doing a job I loved. I now think guilt is a universal part of being a mother. I used to think it was Jewish-mother guilt but now I think it is working-mother guilt.

When I first started designing, all women were dressed like men, and I said, 'Hey, guys, let's be women, put the two together - it's not either/or. Let's celebrate our bodies. Our bodies are different.'

Evening is a time of real experimentation. You never want to look the same way.

Design is a constant challenge to balance comfort with luxe, the practical with the desirable.

I'd rather promote New York than anything else in this world because New York to me means the world.

Delete the negative; accentuate the positive!

I feel very strongly about dresses on every level - a dress feels like underpinning.

Age and size are only numbers. It's the attitude you bring to clothes that make the difference.

Everything in life... has to have balance.

I design from instinct. It's the only way I know how to live. What feels good. What feels right. What is needed. Give me a problem and I will approach it creatively, from my gut.

I think I was a nomad in another life.

If I weren't doing what I'm doing today... I'd be traveling around the world on the back of a motorcycle.

Design and style should work toward making you look good and feel good without a lot of effort so you can get on with the things that matter.

I love skiing, I love the sun, I love my children, I love my grandchildren, I love my family and friends... and whatever I haven't done.

Women should always take care of themselves first. It makes you more equipped to take care of others.