I've always believed that you have to have the skills before you destroy the skills. If you want to be crude, be crude, but don't be crude because you don't know how to do it, because you're not perfect at drawing and pattern-cutting.

I often ask students: 'Is this what you would show Tom Ford?' and they say: 'No, we'd have done more work' or 'We'd have dressed better.' So I say: 'Why don't you do that here?'

Many students don't really like it (fashion). If they don't like it, they won't be able to tell you who the stylists are or the photographers. If they say they can't remember the names but they recognize the work, I'll say that's bullshit because if you were selling mobile phones, you'd know all about the phones' features and tariffs.

Are there a lot of designers that matter? The industry hasn’t got a litmus test any more. The whole thing has imploded. Watch it die, like the banking industry

It's a secret language, known to all different people, in different ways, that enables them to read a subliminal message without realising they're reading it. It affects people on many levels, and even people who think they're not into fashion, or reject fashion are then being informed just in the case of rejecting it. The fact that they had to react against it was a conscious decision.

I never really liked Italy. 'Lots of cement' is my long-standing quote.

You can't subvert knowledge until you have knowledge... At the same time, I respect a student coming at it from a totally different position and trying to move it forward, and not falling into the rattrap of work that came before.