It's an unbelievably tight race for hideous today.

American women often fall into the trap of, "Oh, these are my weekend clothes. These are my work clothes. This is what I wear at night." It's so old-fashioned. The French are not afraid of their luxury. Americans can be so puritanical and think, "That's my special-occasion bag." Whereas, for a French woman, it's her everyday bag.

I think the trick is, how do you spend time doing it but make it look like you haven't spent time doing it? Over the years you look at women like Lauren Hutton and everyone says: 'She just pulled her hair back and ran out of the door.' I've been in fittings with Lauren and she definitely thinks about it. She just knows how to make it look easy.

The greenest thing you could do in fashion, is to buy something great that you’re going to use for years

When I'm not working I'm a slug - a full slug. I am not good at the in-between. I'm either fever-pitched or want to just pass out on a beach with a really sleazy book and eat a cheeseburger.

Americans are always a little bit insecure.

You make sexiness strong by balancing it out: something familiar with something unfamiliar, something masculine with something feminine, something streamlined with something rococo. It's a Yin and Yang. Women are made of layers, your mood shifts, no one is neither one extreme nor the other.