There are two women that I am really in love with that I wish I could have dressed: The first one is Marilyn Monroe, and the second is Whitney Houston. People always ask me who's going to be the next, and I never know, but I know I would love to have had Marilyn and Whitney wear Balmain.

Sometimes I feel fashion is not open-minded enough. We need to push the old crowd to believe in what I believe, in the new generation. I remember when I started, my campaigns and and how I connected my love for music with fashion were a tiny bit controversial because they were like, 'How can you bring hip-hop or music into a luxury world?' or 'How you can be so connected to digital and use social media in luxury world?' Now it's changed, obviously, for the best, but I still think that we could push a bit more.

You're taught that you need to please magazines, to please the fashion elite, and that if you do everything the right way, everyone is going to love you. But I decided not to follow some of the rules. My girls from the runway were not just models - they were soldiers. They helped me bring my ideas to life. I was talking about sexiness, about diversity, about different shapes of bodies. I was following my instincts and learning that it would not please the fashion elite. And I think this is the real luxury, to be free to express yourself. Freedom is luxury to me.

When you build a big empire, you become the persona that people think they know. So when you try to show them who you are, to help them discover you, they just want what they think they know about you. I would have been smarter to build some relationships when I was younger, a private love or something. Today it is more difficult. But it's the price to pay. I never regret anything, because every choice I made for a reason, but I'd love personal love.

There are two women that I am really in love with that I wish I could have dressed: The first one is Marilyn Monroe, and the second is Whitney Houston. People always ask me who's going to be the next, and I never know, but I know I would love to have had Marilyn and Whitney wear Balmain.

I like people who are powerful, confident, and fearless. Balmain is about an attitude. I think if Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor were alive, they would definitely be part of the Balmain crew.

I'm always trying to understand who I want to be, what I want, what I dream of. When I was a kid, I was really worried that my parents were going to bring me back to the orphanage. I was scared of tomorrow, scared that I was going to be abandoned again. So I tried to enjoy every minute of my life because maybe tomorrow wasn't going to happen. I think I live the same way today: scared of tomorrow. For someone who is considered a party boy, a guy who just has fun and drinks champagne, I'm really tortured.