My aim is to make the poor look rich and the rich look poor. Men don’t want another man to look at their woman because they don’t know how to handle it. I try as much as possible to give you a great basic product and what comes out, I feel, is really amazing. You can only go forward by making mistakes. It’s the men who have nothing to wear. Fashion fosters cliches of beauty, but I want to tear them apart.
You’re only as good as your last collection, which is an enormous pressure. It’s a philosophy of life. A practice. If you do this, something will change, what will change is that you will change, your life will change, and if you can change you, you can perhaps change the world. I love my beauty. It’s not my fault. Doing collections, doing fashion is like a non-stop dialogue. The market is like a language, and you have to be able to understand what they’re saying.
I think there is something about luxury – it’s not something people need, but it’s what they want. It really pulls at their heart. A lot of self-importance goes on in the fashion industry. I’m not like that. It’s really easy to get colors right. It’s really hard to get black – and neutrals – right. Black is certainly a color but it’s also an illusion. When I was young, I lived like an old woman, and when I got old, I had to live like a young person. Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury.
Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury. I love you if you love me. Awkwardness gives me great comfort. I’ve never been cool, but I’ve felt cool. I’ve been in the cool place, but I wasn’t really cool – I was trying to pass for hip or cool. It’s the awkwardness that’s nice. I am like a freight train. Working on the details, twisting them and playing with them over the years, but always staying on the same track. Attitude is everything.
Fashion is to please your eye. Shapes and proportions are for your intellect. I want people to be afraid of the women I dress. I have an obsession with details and pattern. Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future. Confidence. If you have it, you can make anything look good. Success isn’t about the end result, it’s about what you learn along the way. I am convinced that you don’t need to spend a fortune to look like a million. Grunge is a hippied romantic version of punk. I like the body. I like to design everything to do with the body. Fashion to me has become very disposable; I wanted to get back to craft, to clothes that could last.
VANITY IS THE HEALTHIEST THING IN LIFE
Even if I’m only creating these looks at 11pm to start out, it’ll be worth it to have an hour or so where I’m just able to have my mind on something other than how much work I have to do, or how tired I am. There is always an emotional element to anything that you make. I adore the challenge of creating truly modern clothes, where a woman’s personality and sense of self are revealed. I want people to see the dress, but focus on the woman. There is always an emotional element to anything that you make. Those fashion designers are just crazy; but aren’t we all? A woman has the age she deserves.
“I can’t get sucked into that celebrity thing, because I think it’s just crass.”
The market is like a language, and you have to be able to understand what they’re saying. It pains me physically to see a woman victimized, rendered pathetic, by fashion. My breakfast is very important. I am not interested in the past, except as the road to the future. People said making clothes inside out was not proper. I disagreed, because clothes that are inside out are as beautiful as a cathedral.
