I don't go out to parties because I'd look terrible in pictures. My escape is television - it's like meditation to me.

If you take something out of the freezer, it's cold, but what happens when it melts? It's a cool party, a cool person, a cool collection. What does that mean? I'm more interested in things that are uncool, things that have a certain individuality, a certain soul, a certain longevity, emotion, fragility.

For me, the sketching of dresses was about fantasy and dreams. In my little room at home, I felt that I was somewhere else. In Paris, for instance.

I am not interested in perfection, and neither are the women who wear my clothes.

I've always said fashion is like roast chicken: You don't have to think about it to know it's delicious.

I think fashion is about longevity and doing your work. It isn't about winning or losing. It's about process, keeping it going.

Yves Saint Laurent gave women power, Chanel liberated them and when I joined Lanvin, I thought 'what do I bring to women? One day, I received an SMS from a friend in New York - she was in a taxi on the way to court to face her arsehole ex-husband, and she said to me 'Alber, I am wearing a Lanvin dress, and I feel so protected.' That to me was the biggest compliment I ever received. To have a 500 gram piece of silk make her feel protected - that made me very happy indeed.