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.

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.

When journalists come to interview me, it's a part of my life that is exhibited, as if pieces of clothing are being taken off one by one. But it's not very important really.

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.

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 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.

You don't spend every day saying, "Gosh! That's so beautiful." Sometimes you look at an object more attentively and see it anew. I won't talk of any one object in particular. For me there is no hierarchy in art. Things have an inherent quality or they don't.