One of the key things for me about Madame Walker's life is that she really does represent this first generation out of slavery when black people were reinventing themselves, and as a woman who was the first child in her family born free, she was trying to figure out a way, and she moved from Delta, Louisiana.
The suit is the polite taming, the socialising, the neutering, of riding and military kit. Those pointless buttons on the cuff were moved from lateral to vertical.
I developed a mania for Fitzgerald - by the time I'd graduated from high school I'd read everything he'd written. I started with 'The Great Gatsby' and moved on to 'Tender Is the Night,' which just swept me away. Then I read 'This Side of Paradise,' his novel about Princeton - I literally slept with that book under my pillow for two years.
I moved back to Idaho when I was 6 or 7 and then lived in a little town called Twin Falls and then moved to Boise. So quite different from L.A. I'd been to Disneyland a couple of times, and that was the closest I'd been to L.A.
Yeah, I left Idaho at 17. You know, I graduated high school a year early and just, you know, the typical story, packed up my car and moved out.
I moved out to Los Angeles a fan of many people, and meeting people I put on a pedestal that just disappointed me. Without fans, this business would not exist, so I try and say that we're all on the same level.
I love Maira Kalman. She's an amazing illustrator and writer. I've loved her since I was in college, but when I moved to New York and experienced the same city she was drawing and writing about, I developed a whole new appreciation. Her work made me observe everything so much deeper and more joyfully.
I ended up going to college for visual arts but moved up to New York after I graduated from college in 2006 and started going gung ho to the Upright Citizens Brigade, and I realized that that was what I was really interested in and what I really wanted to do.
I didn't go to school for illustration. I did larger pieces, mostly drawings and paintings, and minored in video, but when I moved to N.Y.C., I didn't have a studio space anymore and downsized to my desk and started illustrating. I started a greeting card company and sold cards all over the city.
From a pretty early age, my mother realized that I was a little bit more gifted and talented than my own age group. So, she moved me over to play with the boys' travel soccer team when I was about 11 years old.
