I’d been cutting up bedspreads and trying to make my own clothes since the age of six or seven. My inspiration was a little girl I’d once glimpsed in a tap-dancing class: a vision of chic in a black skinny-rib sweater, seven inches of black pleated skirt and black tights under white ankle socks and black patent leather tap-dancing shoes. After that, all I wanted to do was design clothes and tap-dance. My parents, however, were dead against me going to fashion school. There’s no future in fashion, they said — and from their perspective, they were probably right.