Insecurity is a waste of time. I am never satisfied with myself and that is what keeps me going - I have no post-satisfaction. I am not interested in the past, except as the road to the future. I couldn't love a woman who inspired me to be totally disinterested. If I fell in love with a woman for an artistic reason, or from the point of view of my work, I think it would rob her of something. I try as much as possible to give you a great basic product and what comes out, I feel, is really amazing.

I love things that age well - things that don't date, that stand the test of time and that become living examples of the absolute best. You have to always work against what you did before, and even against your taste. Men have got more of a discerning eye. They appreciate cut and details, things that aren't so obvious. They like things that have cachet and gentlemanliness. Those fashion designers are just crazy; but aren't we all? It's really easy to get colors right. It's really hard to get black - and neutrals - right. Black is certainly a color but it's also an illusion.

Design is a constant challenge to balance comfort with luxe, the practical with the desirable. I want to thank all the women who have worn my clothes, the famous and the unknown, who have been so faithful to me and given me so much joy. I don't like trends. They tend to make everybody look the same. You can only go forward by making mistakes. It is difficult to talk about fashion in the abstract, without a human body before my eyes, without drawings, without a choice of fabric - without a practical or visual reality.

You can't just buy things for the label - it's ridiculous. I like the things around me to be beautiful and slightly dreamy, with a feeling of worldliness. First I made a dress because I was pregnant and I wanted to be the most beautiful pregnant woman. Then I made a sweater because I wanted to have one that wasn't like anyone else's. Sometimes incompetence is useful. It helps you keep an open mind. Fashion moves so quickly that, unless you have a strong point of view, you can lose integrity.

I always loved aesthetics. Not particularly fashion, but an idea of beauty. Fashion is always of the time in which you live. It is not something standing alone. But the grand problem, the most important problem, is to rejeuvenate women. To make women look young. Then their outlook changes. They feel more joyous. I have my permanent muses and my muses of the moment. A woman is never sexier than when she is comfortable in her clothes. A woman has the age she deserves.

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