Antonio Lopez: "I'm always inspired by people. People are what I love."

Maria Luisa Cruz: Lopez said of his mother, a seamstress: "My mother was an artist. She would embroider beautiful clothes in richly colored flowers. She taught me all that she knew so that I might have all the success and fortune she never had."

Mercedes Negron: Ramos's mother, Ms. Negron, passed on to Juan her intelligence, power of observation and discretion. He astutely applied those qualities to his successful career.

Susan Baraz, model: "The MAGIC of you attracted magical people around you."

Charles James, designer: Antonio documented Charles James's life works of couture creations. With drawings, James taught Lopez and Ramos to investigate the function of every seam so that a single stroke of a brush would capture and portray the essence of the garment.

Bill Cunningham, writer and photographer: "I fully realized the intensity and torture Lopez inflicted on himself as he struggled to capture the essence of each design: his eyes, like magnets, extracting the spirit from the dress, his mouth and tongue rolled in an attempt to devour the design. You could almost see the creative force charging through his body, then flowing out through his hands."

Karl Lagerfeld, designer: Karl became Lopez's and Ramos's mentor and helped them find the apartment in Boulevard St. Germain, which became the American home in Paris for models and other members of Lopez's entourage.

Tina Chow, model: "Lopez told me what was beautiful and what was awkward and superfluous and other things that were even more basic. He gave me confidence....I know that his judgment about people has always been right. It was just basic character."

Jerry Hall, model: "He's [Lopez]always changin' his style but it always comes out lookin' like him. That's what stayin' in fashion's about."

Pat Cleveland, model: "Being American but with people of different nationalities in Europe and being with Antonio were very special. Our group was an incredible blend of different types of girls."

Paloma Picasso, jewlery and accessories designer: "He [Lopez] is tyrannical, but I love what he does. He has the temperament of my father."

Richard Martin, art historian and curator: "Antonio utilized his prodigious knowledge of past styles as the means by which to arrive at arrestingly new statements of the beautiful."

Nao Oishi, author and fashion editor: "More startling was the revelation that Antonio and Juan and many of their friends ... all had a very casual attitude about their social success and renown, regardless of their private achievements."

Anna Piaggi, fashion editor: "I am completely convinced that, for Lopez, drawing for a magazine was more exciting than any other form of expression. The printed page was for him the image of his true art, and its logical conquest, the perfect realization."

Andy Warhol, artist: "I believe his technique and drawings are wonderful. Above all, he has a journalist's eye. He sees more than others. Lopez dwells beyond the limits of any commercial category he may have been placed in. Beyond his paper creations, Lopez can create and influence other entities."

Bill "Blast" Cordero, artist worked with Lopez and Ramos on several projects including Studio 54's graffitti party, the movie Portfolio, and included recruiting friends and breakdancers to dance and pose for magazine editorials. Cordero was responsible for introducing Antonio to the latest sounds, as represented here as a sound bite in "Muses & Mentors." This sampling came from an orignial tape of Cordero, put together in the summer of 1983 especially for Antonio.