There's nothing that really motivates me anymore and demands that I get up in the morning. In the past it was Yves Saint Laurent.

I met Andy Warhol in the '60s, a wonderful time, with wonderful people. There was Fred Hughes, and Jed Johnson, who I liked a lot. Jed Johnson decorated my apartment in New York, at the Pierre. It was his first job.

A collection is like a dinner party. It is made up of the people you invite, but also the people you don't.

I am a man who has spent more than half a century ostensibly and visibly accompanying Yves Saint Laurent throughout his life - but not only that. In the past and still today, I have been behind a lot of creators and artists, supporting them and helping them. That's probably how I see my mission.

You don't own art. What does that mean? We are trustees of art. Art is in transit with us. That is why an auction is a wonderful thing. You clap your hands and the objects fly away like doves and find other places where they will be protected, loved. That's what I believe.

The problem with Yves Saint Laurent was that he was a man who understood his time period better than anyone, but he didn't like it. Real artists live their own lives in parallel. It's the artist who transforms his times.

In April 2007 I learned that Yves Saint Laurent had a brain tumor, and he died on June 1, 2008. During those 14 months I had plenty of time to think about what would happen. There was only one solution: the auction. An auction establishes memory. That's what I want to do.