I'd experienced the '40s and '50s by looking at my grandparents' old clothes, books, and magazines

Perhaps I shouldn't have been influenced by the idea that my name could be spread across the entire world.

For me, haute couture is a necessity. I never would have done this job were it not for haute couture. It is a comfort, a security. I almost feel it is our duty to continue. Haute couture is France. We have to keep all the skills and craftmanship alive.

In Italy, the Milanese are well organized but follow bourgeois taste. They adhere to certain codes of elegance, but not to individualism.

The exchange by e-mail is more intimate than conversation - you allow yourself to say things you otherwise wouldn't.

French design hardly exists, except as artificial modernism.

I think it's always difficult to reconcile the needs of art and business.