Carly Simon: romance, pain, anticipation—if it's a human impulse, then Carly Simon has sung about it. Now the singer who has provided the soundtrack to a thousand breakups reveals how it all came together

Interview, July, 2004 by Michael Kors

MK: See, fashion is pretty shallow. We make people look good and they enjoy how they feel in something, but I always think, Does it really resonate with people? Once in a while someone will say, "I have a dress of yours, and it's my favorite thing ever." So I think, Well, maybe it was worth all the energy. But music is so incredibly personal.

CS: But what about when you're creating beautiful images and drawing lines of the way a human form can be clothed? You look back in time and see togas, and huge monumental sleeves that Elizabethans wore. That's what I think fashion is at its best. It's not just utilitarian. You make things that trigger the imagination. It's part of making the universe a nicer place to be in. Thinking back, what do you believe was the most dramatic statement in fashion? I was thinking of Queen Elizabeth I. What was that strange thing she wore around her neck?

MK: The ruff?

CS: Yeah. Why did they wear it? Was it all fashion, or was it utilitarian in any way?

MK: I don't think that was utilitarian.

CS: Maybe there were germs and bugs they wanted to keep out. [laughs]

MK: Oh, yeah. I think it was probably to separate themselves. Clothes were so about delineating classes and where you stood in society. And now that's all changed. In the "60s, rules about age flew out the window. The idea that once you were a certain age you were a matron--well, forget that. And then the "70s happened and it's like, "Okay, you're rich, but you don't need to look so obviously rich."

CS: It's usually the opposite. Reverse snobbery was instilled.

MK: Totally. So the rules broke down. It probably wasn't possible in fashion before, but today there are three generations of customers. For example, we had a dress this past spring that was worn by both Mary J. Blige and [socialite] Nan Kempner! I don't know that there's one ideal anymore, and I think people like you kind of paved the way.

CS: It's pretty interesting. It didn't matter as much because I'm a singer, not an actress, but my face is more acceptable in a way now than when I first came on the scene, because I'm part black. My mother's mother was black. I'm Jewish, black, Cuban, and French.

MK: So you're eclectic by nature. You know that old song by the Buggies "Video Killed the Radio Star"? Now it's really challenging in the music business for people who don't look a certain way. You've gotta be able to push people's buttons visually. Have you ever seen American Idol?

CS: Once.

MK: It's pretty daunting that these young people get up there and sing, and the judges just criticize them. I mean, I'm sitting there holding my chest. I can't believe these people are going through this!

CS: Yeah, I hated it.

MK: When you were starting out, could you have fathomed doing that?

CS: No, because I was always nervous about being onstage. I had this terrible stammer, so I couldn't really speak properly until I was 16 or 17. My heart would pound so hard because I knew my words would come out like "K-k-k-k." I remember being onstage once when I didn't have fear: I got so scared I didn't have fear that it brought on an anxiety attack. [laughs] Do you know how many concerts I've done in my whole life, in more than 35 years of performing? Sixty-four.