My mother was extremely fashionable. She always looked as though she stepped out of a bandbox—she was very up-to-the-minute, very chic, and very ahead of her time.
She was also an accessory freak; I always say she worshipped at the altar of the accessory. When I was 11 years old, she opened a boutique. She didn’t carry top-of-the-line items, but she did carry the most beautiful costume jewelry, which is how I came to love accessories myself.
Accessories, to me, are the most transformative thing in fashion. You can put on a little black dress but change the accessories and you change the whole outfit.
—As told to Chavie Lieber