At the beginning, I didn't see what Givenchy could give my career. It was like, "Okay, I'll do it for the money for a few years to help my mom and my sisters."

We didn't have a television, so we sat around the table, and me and my sisters and my mom would do these jobs, like, a penny for a piece, you know, these paper jobs. You know, what really saved me as a human today is my sisters and my mom.

My definition of beauty is something between extremely ugly and extremely fantastic.

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.

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.

I try to destroy taboo in fashion-which is something I learned as a kid. I come from the street, and you have to be a survivor.

There are some people whom I esteem and want their opinion first, but that's my way. It is difficult for me to delegate. In the end, I do have two or three people on my team who I listen to.