Everybody's talking about the new democratic world and whether high fashion is relevant. But without high there is no low. I don't like to intellectualize. I've always said fashion is like roast chicken: You don't have to think about it to know it's delicious.

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

I am very much a people person. If I am in a beautiful place but I don't like the people, I am miserable.

There is nothing scarier than being ‘the designer of the moment,’ because the moment ends.

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

I am very sensitive to the smells and sensations that are part of perfumes because they remind me of things: moments from the past, people, events.

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.