Design diva opines on fame, fashion, travel

You are an incredibly accomplished and successful designer, a loving wife and mother, and you make time to travel. You seem to have achieved the American dream. Do you think a woman can have it all?

"Of course! If you have help and can juggle, you can have it all. I have this photo shoot and interview with you today, I then have a fitting that will take an hour and a half, and I am going to take my son to go rock climbing this afternoon. He is coming up to the office and we are leaving from here, I will come back to do my fitting and then go back and pick him up. I am very hands-on with my designing. I am at the office sketching every day, draping clothes, working with coloration. I am involved in every step of the process. I went to the Rhode Island School of Design and then I studied in Paris at the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. I have studied so many aspects of designing and I can do everything my assistants can do, which is a benefit. I am capable of performing every step of the process myself, including the sewing."

You went to school in America and in Paris. I am curious, which country influenced you more via your designing?

"My mother is French so I speak fluent French and I grew up with that wonderful French influence. While I studied in Paris, all of the courses I took were in French and it was quite easy for me to live and study there. I find it interesting that the Parisian school I studied at was very old-fashioned. It was run by couturiers who insisted on a very old-fashioned method of teaching. When I went back to RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) it was very avant-garde, very abstract, very artistic, very esoteric — it gave me a totally different perspective on teaching. I received a really interesting combination of educations. One was total freedom with a push for creativity, and one was very old-school technique."

Tell me about your beautiful new line of luggage.

"It is a new license for us and it is just coming out. It can be bought online and it will be in department stores. If you come into our stores you can order our luggage from our catalog. Please go to www.nicolemiller.com."

You are a wonderful role model for aspiring young men and women who hope to follow in your famous fashion-forward footsteps. Do you have any special advice for them?

"It is going to keep getting tougher. Design schools are packed with designers coming out, and designers are now competing with celebrities and socialites. Almost every socialite and celebrity wants a clothing line. It is unfortunate. These kids coming out of design school are going to be working behind the scenes for some "name" person. It is going to be harder and harder to break through and become a significant new designer."

Let's talk travel, one travelgirl to another. Do you have any favorite vacation destinations?

"I do. I love taking vacations and I have a really funny travel story. My husband and my son and I were scheduled to travel to Iceland with some friends. We were all meeting at the airport. We arrived at the airport first, and, all of a sudden, my friend calls to tell me that our plane won't be able to land in Iceland because of a weather problem. Our friends arrive to meet us and we start wondering where we should travel to now that Iceland is out. We began discussing possibilities such as Scandinavia but it was winter and we knew the weather would be just as difficult in Scandinavia. So we thought, maybe we should go to South America. It was crazy deciding where we should vacation when we had planned to go to Iceland and we were packed and ready with our ski clothes. We finally made a decision — we asked our pilots to reroute us, believe it or not, to Belize. Can you imagine, there we are, landing in Belize with our ski clothes, our shearling coats on and all these suitcases full of winter clothing, even ski boots. We land in Belize and we buy new clothes in the hotel gift shop, you know, T-shirts and flip flops. The next day we decide to move on so we ask our pilots to route us on to Costa Rica. We had no reservations anywhere and it was Christmas time. We finally found a four-star resort that could take us, but we checked in and we hated it. Our friends found an enormous bug in their room, which made matters worse, and we kept wondering what on earth we were going to do. My husband did some research and found a Four Seasons Hotel in Costa Rica, and luckily they could take us so we hired a driver, piled in and moved. We loved that hotel but we couldn't stay through Christmas because the hotel was booked, so we then had our pilots fly us to Cabo San Lucas. So instead of Iceland we went to Belize, Costa Rica and Cabo for our vacation. We had the most hilarious time."

Is there one particular item you never leave home without?

"I have a few items I never leave home without. One is my hair-straightening iron. I also always travel in jeans; it's actually for a safety reason. One should never travel in synthetic clothing; you should always travel in cotton. If anything ever happens, you are always safer in cotton. Do you know that I always have a smoke mask in my purse? I have it now; I never travel without it. Most importantly, I never travel without pictures of my son. I also always have my iPhone, an iPod and two sets of headphones with a splitter for sharing."

As the head of a fashion empire you must certainly know how to pack. Now that many airlines are charging for checked bags, will you please give our readers some packing tips?

"I always take hand-carry luggage only. Always make everything relate to black when packing. Take black pants, a black skirt so everything can coordinate to your black bottoms. Black pieces work with everything. The hardest thing for me is always determining which shoes to take because shoes are heavy and are also rather difficult to place in your suitcase. If it's winter I wear boots on the plane and I take one pair of dress shoes in my carry on. Also, it is important to take fabrics that fold well. I am working with metals now, and these fabrics travel incredibly well and do not wrinkle. You can actually fold them and they will not wrinkle at all. By the way, all of my designs steam out in the shower. You do not need to iron them, just hang them in the shower and let the steam do the work. Wool, rayon, silk — they all steam out in the shower. My metal wedding dresses do not wrinkle either. You can ship them and they don't need to be pressed when you arrive. My metal dresses are fabulous. They are so slimming and they make everyone look thinner."

"I find it interesting that the Parisian school I studied at was very old-fashioned. When I went back to RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) it was very avant-garde, very abstract, very artistic, very esoteric — it gave me a totally different perspective on teaching."

Nicole Miller,

fashion designer