The fashion industry can in a certain way be very hard and closed.

I think in the darkest moments, we need a break.

Your body can be very female, which is something you can do nothing about, but then you can have the soul, the mind and the spirit of both male and female. The women friends I am closest to somehow have this masculine side to them, they shove their hands in their pockets when they walk: I love that side.

I couldn't have opened a store without putting books with the clothes. I am still writing as I have always done, and have published my ninth book "L'envers à l'endroit" last year. I am currently working on a dictionary of my favourite words.

I am like the lover of Roland Barthes "who's always running in his head". I'm always searching, and "eating" everything from my life, in order to put it in my dresses!

Being one step ahead of a fashion trend is not so important to me. What matters is to always forge ahead.

As a young girl I was a real tomboy, only listening to myself. I carried on with this attitude even as a woman and when I first launched the Sonia Rykiel line, and said to women to remove their bras or when I designed sweaters with stitches inside out, everybody said to me that it was crazy and risky, but I ignored what they said and I did what I felt was right at the time.