I'm very impressed by St. Patrick's. Another deity to me is definitely Saks Fifth Avenue. Someone told me that when they go to Vermont, they feel like they're home. I'm that way at Saks.
Someone told me that when they go to Vermont, they feel like they're home. I'm that way at Saks.
I bought into Saks as a personal investment because, when I was a young man and went to America for the first time, it seemed to me that Saks was like a cathedral of retail. I never dreamt that I could one day be a part of it. And now I am.
Saks is one of the temples of good-quality products in America. The Saks shop in New York, for me, is the most interesting department store in America.
My first retailer was Saks Fifth Avenue. I didn't even know how to ship a box to a retailer. Like, how do you pack it? How do you send it to make sure it gets on the floor? You figure it out as you go along.
I was a Versace perfume girl at Saks Fifth Avenue, and Rihanna actually came up to the counter and asked for something. And she wouldn't even take her sunglasses off! She was so mean to me. Not mean, but, like, guarded. I don't blame her, though.
And I call Saks Fifth Ave-y home. That is where a real bad Barbie roam.
Everything about my journey to get Spanx off the ground entailed me having to be a salesperson - from going to the hosiery mills to get a prototype made to calling Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. I had to position myself to get five minutes in the door with buyers.
I quickly discovered that trying to go play golf while living in Manhattan was about as easy as trying to grab a taxi while standing out in front of Saks Fifth Avenue in the freezing rain on the last shopping day before Christmas.
Comfortably middle-class, I had shopped for years at the likes of Saks outlet Off Fifth, Banana Republic, and Zara. My mom raised me to believe clothes should be comfortable and practical, not frivolous.
For mascara, I'll just use whatever I have in my bag. I'll use anything. I feel like, from drugstores to a Saks, they are all the same to me.
I wanted to go higher than Rockefeller Center, which was being erected across the street from Saks Fifth Avenue and was going to cut off my view of the sky. . . . Flying got into my soul instantly but the answer as to why must be found somewhere back in the mystic maze of my birth and childhood and the circumstances of my earlier life. Whatever I am is elemental and the beginnings of it all have their roots in Sawdust Road. I might have been born in a hovel, but I determined to travel with the wind and stars.
When I was a girl, my grandmother would take me during the holidays to see the windows at Saks and Rockefeller Center.
To me, I'm sort of like Dorothy in 'The Wiz.' It kind of parallels my life. It's a story that reminds me... that home is where the love is. So if I go to Tampa or St. Pete, and I feel the love there, that's my home. That's where the love is.
When I was about ten, I was very impressed by the way Tarzan could swing through the trees from vine to vine. No one ever told me, 'Don't try this at home.'
Oh, I shop all over the place, really. Like I love department stores like Barney's and Saks and stuff like that. But I also just like to walk in Soho and find some interesting boutique that doesn't really have a huge name or following, and I'll go in and find something amazing.
Within the first year of launching my company, Spanx, I decided to go over to England and cold-call Harrods, Harvey Nichols, and Selfridges the same way I had cold-called Neiman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom, and Bloomingdale's here in the United States.