Donna Karan: I Failed Draping Class At Parsons

Donna Karan talked to CBS Sunday Morning last weekend about her rise to designing fame. She admitted that she wasn't an exemplary student at Parsons:

"They never thought I would make it as a designer," she said. "I failed draping!"

She talked about creating her famous "seven easy pieces."

"I needed a wardrobe, a real clear defined wardrobe that would take me from day into evening," Karan explained. "You know, I start with a body suit, wrap a skirt around, which you know is the kind of thing that I would wear, a scarf or a sarong. Add a tailored jacket and a scarf and you go."

She also shared some amusing anecdotes from her early days:

"The funny part is, when I would go into my office and open up the mail and it said, 'Donna Karan,' well, I thought it meant me!" she laughed. "So I would open up everybody's letters. But they weren't meant for me. They were meant for the business!"

And, here's some Donna Karan design trivia: both Hillary and Bill Clinton wore Donna Karan to the president's first inauguration in 1993.