Unlike fashion, art isn't applied. It doesn't have to serve anybody. It doesn't have to be there for any other reason than to give an impression of what the world is about.

I always try to connect with what's happening in the world-reality, modernity, the 21st century, all that - and with Jil it started to feel very disconnected from the outside and how women were looking at fashion, experiencing fashion, interpreting fashion.

If I see a fashion show with literal influences, it doesn't make me think any more. It doesn't make me dream.

It was a challenge for me to see how I could deal with that at Jil, and I had a lot of doubt about it. I wondered if maybe it was just better to do your own thing in the long run, like an artist.

Robert Gober, for example. He doesn't seem like somebody who is just going to show in a gallery that asks him to show. He's just making his work, and when he's ready, he's going to show it.

Collage – SS13 offers a very controlled and pure do-it-yourself attitude. The collection shows a juxtaposition of very different materials, prints and colours, therefore giving the wearer a possibility to combine the garments in different ways.

I would prefer to use the word free. I think the Dior thing is so much freer. There was not so much free about Jil's way of working.