"So my dress I had gotten while I was working in East Africa in Uganda… all the second hand clothing that comes from America goes to Uganda. So I would do a lot of shopping in those markets… you would always find very unique things.

So as I was walking I saw this very brightly coloured gold dress …and it fit like a glove so it was one of those ‘ah ha’ moments in the market which doesn’t usually happen. It has no label. It’s a little rough on the inside. The lining and things like that. It’s cut with like pinking sheers.

I’m very much about fit so with the African garments it’s interesting. A lot of them are boxy. They’ll make it one-sized-fits-all and you’ll put a belt around it. [In Uganda] clothes need it to be more functional. They need to breast feed their children. A lot of the things that they have are a solid piece of fabric that’s just a square and it will be used to carry their children, to carry things on their head, to tie up their hair. If something spills on the floor, if you have a guest and you need to lay it out so it’s clean… a multi purpose fabric.

And in the western world you just don’t have that. You have this one outfit that sometimes you can only wear to that one occasion but for me I always try to get make it multi [purpose]. So for me, I’ve worn this dress from first dates to wedding rehearsals to Friday at work because in New York you can wear anything you want."