When I was young, especially when I was at school, I thought couture was about big gowns, big hats (that is couture as well, of course) - but my couture is about going near the clothes and having a look at the details. I like people to have a shock in a chic way.

I’m very faithful to myself. When you do things that are true it just comes out quite instinctively.

No matter how much people in fashion think we're so cool and avant-garde, for most fashion people, creativity is quite taboo.

Most little children's obsessions are robots and Barbie dolls. My obsession as a kid was the Versace house. I used to save up my pocket money to buy Versus shirts. I was that obsessed!

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.

Couture is emotion. Couture is freedom. Couture is not thinking about pricing and not thinking about craziness. You can do whatever you want to do in couture.

The couture client wants the latest things, but she wants the clothes to be super-special - the fabrics won't even touch or go near anything like prêt-à-porter.