Chanel is composed of only a few elements, white camellias, quilted bags and Austrian doorman's jackets, pearls, chains, shoes with black toes. I use these elements like notes to play with.

When you hear designers complaining about the challenge of their profession, you have to say: don't get carried away-it's only dresses.

You come first, the clothes later. Reinvent new combinations of what you already own. Be creative.

I try not to be sentimental and obsessive about possessions. I love collecting, but I hate owning.

When I was a child I asked my mother what homosexuality was about and she said - and this was 100 years ago in Germany and she was very open-minded - 'It's like hair color. It's nothing. Some people are blond and some people have dark hair. It's not a subject.' This was a very healthy attitude.

EXTREME LUXURY ISN'T THE MOST BLING-BLING, IT'S EXTREME REFINEMENT, WHICH IS COUTURE AT ITS FINEST.

What I do Coco would have hated. The label has an image and it's up to me to update it. I do what she never did. I had to find my mark. I had to go from what Chanel was to what it should be, could be, what it had been to something else.