John Bartlett, 43 Creative Consultant, Ghurka

Harvard excels at turning out investment bankers who earn billion-dollar bonuses, neurobiologists who discover how we are just like earthworms, and politicians who act like earthworms. It’s rare when you meet an alumnus who’s won two Council of Fashion Designers awards (the Oscars of that industry), then dropped out to roam the world, and returned with some interesting things to say. John Bartlett is such a person.

You quit the fashion business in 2002 and took off for the Far East, where you purchased a monk ensemble and studied Ashtanga yoga. Have you now renounced anti-materialism? I think I put my business on hold because I was struggling with the nastier side of the fashion biz but have since reconciled the fact that I can bring happiness and a nice backside to my customer and that felt like good karma to me.

Are your clothes today influenced by Buddhist philosophy? Not necessarily, although I did have an eco-collection with only bald models who danced down the catwalk like Hare Krishnas. I think my inspiration is always going to be more Americana, like a Charlie Brown sweater. My approach to the business, however, has changed in the last few years. I am less attached to the reviews and try to enjoy the actual process of design more.

Do you have to be smart to be a designer? Some designers are not smart at all and they seem to actually fare better. They might have a higher tolerance for hour-long conversations over the right shoe and the wrong skirt length. That stuff makes me crazy.

When did you first think you might want to design clothes? Going into my senior year at Harvard, I found myself making a skirt out of a mailbag and realized I had a calling for defacing government property and creating a scene by wearing the skirt in Adams House dining hall.

Favorite outfit as a kid? My sister’s white pom-pom poncho and my dad’s Gucci loafers.

A friend of mine is impressed that the coat she bought from you in the ’90s never fell apart, no matter how many ditches she fell into while in a drunken stupor. Are your clothes ditch-proof? My clothes are “wear-tested” by friends who borrow them from the showroom, wear them out all night, and return them to the racks five minutes before Saks arrives. If Saks still buys them, I consider them ditch-proof.

When people hear your name, they think of quotations…or pears. Do you have any favorite quotations about pears? I love the quote “Not too tight and not too loose,” which pertains to both Buddhism and how I approach designing clothes now. By the way, I did have a pear on my label for a while, until I realized that women were not drawn to pear shapes on their clothing.

I really like your black, red, and white tennis sweater. Do you think it would look good on me? It would look great on you: very Fosse with black tights and a fedora.

Where would you like to be five years from now? I see myself walking through the West Village on my way to my flagship store. I am walking my three-legged dog named Tiny Tim, and making a fortune on organic cotton suits that have been made “off the grid.”

Where do you think you’d be if you’d gone to Yale? In L.A. I would have befriended Jodie Foster freshman week and ended up as surrogate dad and eventual “manny” to her kids.