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.

At the age of 9, I read David Copperfield by Dickens. At 14, I read War and Peace by Tolstoy. They're both books I have reread regularly since.

Let's talk about that for a moment, about the couple that Yves Saint Laurent and I were. Like all couples we went through "storms," as the Jacques Brel song says. But if there's one area where we never had the slightest disagreement, it was art. Never. Not once. Not about painting, not about opera, not about theater. We were always in complete communion. Of course, that's how all of the collection came into being.

Geographically speaking, I was born on a French island - the île d'Oléron. Otherwise, I come from a milieu where culture was of the utmost importance. I learned music even before I learned to read. I always read books beyond my years.

I never abandoned Yves Saint Laurent. I used to have lunch with him twice a week. I also saw him every Saturday. My presence beside him was even more important in his bad times. But that didn't leave me a great deal of room in which to maneuver. Freedom is an intellectual space. But I don't use it.

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

Loving dogs is a question of anthropomorphism. We become attached to dogs because of the feelings we project on them.