With couture you have faithfulness - people are faithful to you. In couture, you will see that the cut looks like a lace dress from a distance, but it's only when you get nearer you understand that it's layers of lace, hand stitched in a certain shape, all the work - the zips, the buttons, the hooks... it goes on.

When I was far away, when I prayed every night, I felt I was very near with my heart, with my brain, to my sisters and my mom.

Seduction is about intelligence and wit. Someone who makes me laugh has every chance to seduce me.

For me, creating the clothes of Givenchy is the way to make my tribe. It's related to religion, too, because it's people trying to find identity - the young generation is looking for tribes. You have the hip-hop tribes, the punk tribes, the rockers, you have the hipsters, the bourgeois ... The fact of the tribe is that it's like a religion. Punk is like a religion, because it's a belief.

I used to hate to go to school, because when it was Friday afternoon and everybody was finished school, I knew I was going to work Saturday and Sunday.

My mom and my sisters were amazing; they always see the good in people. My mom, she doesn't know how to write and read much, but she's one of the most fantastic women I've met in my life.

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.