To be a fashion critic is easy because you just say, 'I love it, I hate it,' but life is more than love and hate.

When I'm traveling the world, I don't ever look anymore at the geography - just enough to catch galleries and paintings.

I like the dream, like fantasy dresses. Women can dream at 9 in the morning and at 10 o’clock at night, it doesn’t matter. I think it is also important for me to make it pragmatic and practical and wearable. I always say, 'If you can’t eat it, it’s not food, and if you can’t wear it, it’s not fashion, it is something else.'

I always say that women are very strong and men are powerful. But beauty gives you both strength and power. I never think of it. It's just one of those natural things. It's the only thing I know how to do.

I was thinking recently, If the body really is the new dress, as some are saying - with women buying boobs, butts, faces - then who needs a dressmaker? So I started designing spring like a plastic surgeon - everything stretchy and nude. But after three weeks, I was so bored with myself and the world, I began adding diamond butterflies and chiffon and colors. I realized that fashion is not about second skin. It's not the perfect white shirt or camel jacket. What women need is a dream.

If you change a woman's look, you change her persona.

For me, Lancome was more than just a brand. There was something very nostalgic about the name, about the whole story.