Your priority has to be the creativity - and build a brand. That's what everybody did - Balenciaga, Dior, Saint Laurent. That's the smart thing to do.

I can say, let's go to the DNA of the brand and find something that I can introduce into my work. It's part of the patrimony of fashion.

Designers are more like artistic directors now. Before, there wasn't this idea of supervising the artistic direction of the entire house. The old way was to think you could be this couturier or designer or stylist.

For me, I go somewhere for three days, and then I come back and I want to change everything, and so it's a fight with everybody. I'm transforming and convincing. It's more than designing. It's shaking people and trying to give them direction. I'm a bit of a control freak. This is a problem as I get older, and it's something I should work on. I should be more confident - learn to trust people and give them freedom and delegate.

I always have the feeling that my subjects are the same - I'm just changing my point of view. I'm going to move a little bit this time and watch it a different way. But at the end, I think I'm always fascinated by the same things, except I will express them over and over again, with different words, with different colors, with different shapes. But strangely it will always be the same topics or subjects that are so important to me.

Fashion is a playground up until a certain age. But then you have to find your own signature and your own style.

There is something I think we share, which is, of course, an appreciation for Helmut Lang. I think at a certain point he really changed so many things in fashion. I'm a bit younger than Helmut, but from my point of view he provided a true entrance into this new way of thinking - not being invaded into couture.