On my own account I certainly wouldn't have become the director of a couture house. I didn't have sufficient admiration for fashion as such to have done so.

I had a Vincent van Gogh, a small Provençal landscape. We sold it. If you're going to have a van Gogh it should be a really good van Gogh.

I hate nostalgia. Today is always better than yesterday.

I won't make a mark on history. I have some importance in the time we live in, but that's all.

I'm not an ascetic and please don't use the word zen, which is so lightly bandied about these days. Being zen . . . It's shameful to talk in such a way. I haven't become an ascetic but I'm not going to build up another collection. I'm going to create my new environment. I already know what I want.

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.

Yves Saint Laurent hated fashion. He loved style.