I am interested in beauty when it has something special and mysterious.

Couture is more your own world, they come and buy head-to-toe ­ - they buy the jewelry, bags, coats, dresses, bodies underneath.... But couture is not dead ­ - it's taken another shape.

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."

My obsession when I was kid, from '85 into the '90s, was Gianni Versace. It was Helmut Lang. It was Margiela. So I said, "I cannot have Givenchy only as a luxury house; I'm going to introduce products for everybody, things that are reachable."

In spite of the fact that everyone thinks I am very much a rottweiler - that i am very dark and everything - I have a side that is very romantic that i show to very few people.

I remember that my sisters gave me this beautiful, like, empty book for Christmas. And I would draw all these beautiful women. Most of the time it was mermaids and a Minotaur: half human, half animal. I used to be obsessed with Minotaurs when I was a child.

I've got what I want, and I've got the luck to express myself and to be paid and to do what I do as a creative person.