28 Quotes by Maria Cornejo

My parents, they were both Socialists; they were young - 30, 31. They were both successful career people. They had been teachers, and my dad spoke English.

My aunt made stuff; my mom was creative, so I was surrounded by that. When I moved to England, it was '75, and everything was happening. My whole teenage life is England, glam rock and David Bowie and Sex Pistols and Iggy Pop, all that stuff.

My art teacher was really encouraging me, because he really liked that I could draw. I felt very torn. At that time, I had to pick one, and I felt much more confident in the arts than I did in chemistry. My big thing was that I actually wanted to be like Jacques Cousteau.

My mother had her dresses made. In those days in Chile, the early '70s, people had dressmakers make their things. With the leftovers, my sister and I always had a matching outfit. She had an outfit, we had the mini version. That was the very late '60s, early '70s way to dress your kids.

When I was in high school in England, I wasn't sure that you could have a career in fashion. In those days, there were very few fashion magazines. I didn't realize there was a school where you could go and learn how to make clothes and design. I thought you just had to be discovered somewhere, like a film.

I did go to fashion college, where I was a little punky, a little Bow Wow Wow. I wore red eyeliner. At the time, Vivienne Westwood was really big, so it was a lot of that. London was having a really big moment. I was mixing vintage with things I had made.

I got fired from my first job in a store when I was a student because I kept wearing my own things, and people kept asking me where they were from, and the owner of the store got annoyed with me. So I got fired because I couldn't afford to buy the clothes from the store.

I'm not one for conventional wisdom. I founded my label in 1998, but after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, my Japanese backers pulled out, and I couldn't afford to produce the line myself. I needed fresh ideas from someone who understood technology, since that was the direction the business was going.

Sometimes I need to go for a walk for inspiration.