With the right team, you can really save so much time and energy. Whereas if you don't have the right environment and the right support from the company, or the right team, it can be extremely tiring and frustrating.

Every company, of course, teaches you so much humanly and professionally [about] yourself and your creative process.

Let's forget about themes and mood boards. Let's start from a different point of view. You have to leave for two months all of a sudden. What would you put in your suitcase? What are the twenty essential pieces that you will need and how would you design it to be cool, and you'll want to wear it?

I'm not a designer who is very interested in baroque or in fantasy or in the fantastic side of fashion. This exists and this is important, but I'm interested in the very real dimensions.

Let's try to bring more style into basics, and let's touch real people all around the world, people who don't really care who Christophe Lemaire is.

At Hermès I learned, maybe more than anywhere else, how to work around a legacy, and how to integrate a strong brand culture into my work. Also, to work with a completely different projection system and craftsmanship.

Everywhere I've been working, I always had in mind the final destination of the clothes, which is the consumer.