There are moments in your life where you're like I have arrived. I'm here and I'm living and I'm present. And working with Jean Paul Gaultier was one of them.
I'll always remember Jean Paul Gaultier, who did a project based on Madonnas, remarking on the images, "Yours are much better." Gaultier is really smart, so it's good getting a compliment from him!
I promised myself: Before your 18th birthday, you're going to be at Jean Paul Gaultier. And it worked. I was hired.
Jean Paul Gaultier is not only immensely talented but also a genuinely sweet and kind person.
I lived on a farm in Illinois, and we didn't have a lot of money. But I lived vicariously through magazines. I was obsessed with Jean Paul Gaultier. I still have the scrapbooks, and I've kept all my designs and sketches.
For contemporary fashion, I'm a huge fan of so many of the people out there. I think Azzedine Alaia holds up through three generations of very specific, beautiful design. I think Jean Paul Gaultier also is very interesting with a long span.
Be present. I would encourage you with all my heart just to be present. Be present and open to the moment that is unfolding before you. Because, ultimately, your life is made up of moments. So don't miss them by being lost in the past or anticipating the future.
Your past history and all of your hurts are no longer here in your physical reality. Don't allow them to be here in your mind, muddying your present moments. Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much longer. But all are necessary, otherwise they wouldn't be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.
I spend so much time like living in the past or the future. I mean, I think most people do, really. And the moments when you're really present in your life can be pretty rare, really.
I was once dressed as a mermaid for a Jean Paul Gaultier show. My legs were bound into a fish tail, so I had to come down the runway on crutches. Halfway down, I was supposed to unzip the fish tail to reveal my legs, but the zipper broke, so I ended up stabbing my fake nail through the fabric of the zipper and ripping my way out.
One of the things that Jon Kabat-Zinnn talks about is that everyone wants to figure out how to live longer. But this actually is a very easy way for you to live longer, maybe you're not extending your life, but you are present and living more of the moments of your life.
Gerald Westerby, he told himself. You were present at your birth. You were present at your several marriages and at some of your divorces, and you will certainly be present at your funeral. High time, in our considered view, that you were present at certain other crucial moments in your history.
I've never had an 'I've arrived' moment. I don't like that word, 'arrived.' If you say you've arrived, then you've achieved your dream. You've done all you can. 'I'm the guy now.' I don't like that.
A few times in my life I've had moments of absolute clarity, when for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp. And the world seems so fresh as though it had all just come into existence. I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be.
When people are like, 'Life is good,' I go, 'No, life is a series of disastrous moments, painful moments, unexpected moments, and things that will break your heart. And in between those moments, that's when you savor, savor, savor.'
The past is able to close round certain moments, as if they were seeds, and deliver them again fresh and living in the present.
the most terribly human moments - the ones we want to pretend never happened - are the very moments that make us who we are today. ... You are defined not by life's imperfect moments, but by your reaction to them.