Yelena Baturina

When you are in an unpleasant environment that makes you feel uncomfortable, one of the key ways to improve that situation is through design. That's why I think it is so important to help develop and showcase young designers, as they are our future.

Early in the 1990s, I flew alone in a dandelion-yellow, single-engine, 180-horsepower Piper Cherokee from Westchester County Airport in New York westward to the Rocky Mountains, landing and refuelling a good many times in middle-sized cities and towns along the way.

I was completely with the reality TV boom for a while. I really liked a lot of the reality TV, and the one that lost me was the ballroom dancing one they do, 'Dancing with the Stars.' That was the one where I watched it and I was perplexed. I thought it was really boring.