I’m interested in lots of stuff. Every shop’s different. We’ve got character in this world that is so full of things that are the same.

The problem for so many people is that they pay too much attention to what other people are doing, which you need to do, but also you need to think; “that’s what they’re doing, so this is what I’ll do.”

My shop in L.A., a big pink box, is now one of the most instagrammed buildings in all of California. Literally every day hundreds of people are photographed on the pink wall. It seemed to me that I had to build something very distinctive in order to establish myself.

I just wish people would have more self-expression. They don’t, because they’re too nervous about peer pressure and what people think of them, so they’re a lot less adventurous than they should be.

Nobody needs another anything; fashion designer, graphic designer, film director, whatever, because there's lots of them. What's your point of view?

I've been designing for 50 years and sometimes you need to take a breath and readjust. The world is so oversupplied; not just fashion, everything. There's too much stuff out there and it's about how you have relevance in an overcrowded world.

The problem with the industry is that everybody's chasing each other’s tails these days. They’re all looking at what other brands are doing and what’s on trend. It’s absolute nonsense to think that you have to follow the whole time. You have to know what other people are doing but you can be yourself. You can take your influence from anything, really.

You've got to immerse yourself into whatever area it is you want to do. Today, it's not good enough to just be a designer. You've got to be far more worldly and more aware of what's going on.