It's important for me to really play with the traditions and keep things simple and easy. Ultimately I believe in animal instincts - I think they often end up winning out.

In order to be successful, you have to honor what's in old fashion house, but you also have to play with it and push the limits of it.

It's important for me to really play with the traditions and keep things simple and easy. Ultimately I believe in animal instincts - I think they often end up winning out.

I feel like I have to go back to Paris every so often. It just grows on you - the look of the city, the way people hang out there. If you're in Europe, it's good for that.

People always ask me, "Oh, do you ever want to start your own thing?" And I don't, actually. I think what I enjoy most is the sort of co-production of things, where you bring something and somebody else brings something and a kind of alchemy happens.

For me, coming to a fashion house and bringing my love and respect to it - and, hopefully, earning the love and respect of the house - is the only way to do it. I think of it as my own house in that sense as well. So I like not working from a blank piece of paper. I like that there's something from the past, some kind of identity that I have to work with. There are these good ghosts around, these good energies that kind of reinforce what you do.

That's always my downfall - when I start not having fun or not feeling passionate about what I'm doing. But that's why I love Emilio Pucci. There are some design houses that operate on a more intellectual level, but the way Pucci has always worked is more spontaneous and instinctual.