On the customer

“New York is a bubble. It’s not really the real customers. When you go to a place like Chicago or Los Angeles or Florida, you see the reality of the customer. I do a lot of personal appearances and get to meet clients and see how they are, what they like and get their reactions. It gives me a lot of feedback, which definitely helps me to understand. It’s not just making a beautiful dress — I want to make sure the consumer is out there and wearing the dress, and the reactions that I get definitely help me to refine my ideas. We try to keep an image. You want to associate yourself with people, with celebrities, who feed your brand. Of course, I don’t have the control if somebody wears [something] the way she wants to wear it, but I don’t get horrified by anything because I feel like every person has his own individual style.”

- Yigal Azrouel


“What makes a designer is when a connection is established. A really great designer is one who can anticipate the dreams that his or her customers want to have but can’t formulate themselves. [But] brands don’t belong to designers anymore. People make brands into what they want. It’s a lot more difficult to be dogmatic. Alexander McQueen, by streaming his show directly to the people, is recognizing that the decisions are not going to be made by the magazines, but by the people. They are going to decide. There has been a fundamental shift in the luxury industry. It’s really a different world.”

- Marc Gobe, founder, Emotional Branding