I believe that couture is not about shocking.

When I arrived here at Givenchy, there was a lot of confusion. Before me, there had been some great geniuses - John Galliano and Alexander McQueen are great masters. They marked history. But when I came in after Julien Macdonald, it was also a bit of a mess, because not even I could understand what the true identity of Givenchy was. Everyone thinks that it's only Audrey Hepburn, but there is a whole other world behind it.

My mom didn't teach me about Marco Polo. She didn't teach me about Napoleon. She didn't teach me about any of that. But she did teach me how to survive and to be a good person. And you need to be a strong woman to do that. She's the biggest person in my life. She's my Virgin Maria. That's why I love religion so much.

When I went to England, to Saint Martins, I was traumatized, in a positive way. It was that British sense of transgression and the dark. Then when I went to Paris, I was doing couture, which everyone was saying was finished. Bullshit! For me, in the end, it was all a mixing of ingredients.

My great strength, which I very much believe in, is family. For me, family doesn't simply mean components of DNA. I mean family in the sense of siblings. My mom and my sisters are the energy and inspiration in my life.

I like when a man has one strong accessory. If it's a watch, it has to be major. If you have strong shoes, it should just be the shoes. I don't like when a man is overdone-that's just bad taste. Coco Chanel was always saying you have to watch yourself in the mirror, put on a lot of things, and then take them off. I think it should be that way for men as well.

Couture is also a matter of respect. In the end, all of these women sewing and embroidering the clothes, whom are almost all my mother's age, they're all 70 or 80 years old, have been here for a lifetime. They spend hours on it and come up with solutions. And because it's on a catwalk, people see if for five seconds and don't even see the technique, the drapery.