What is masculine and what is feminine, anyway?
It's always the badly dressed people who are the most interesting.
I like the dynamism and the joy cabare creates. I have always taken my job very seriously, but have always liked to have fun, to play. I like tradition and classicism but I have always liked to mix it up, even if it shocks at times.
Clothes are expensive. You have to buy them, and to buy them, you have to believe in them.
To show the relativity of what's good taste and what's not is something I like to play with.
Designers are to be in connection with what's happening with the movement of society.
Clothes became my attraction and obsession early. I wasn't so interested in dressing myself because I was not my object of desire.
I was fascinated by movies from age 12.
Fashion is not art. Never.
I love Madonna. She is the only woman I have asked to marry me. She refused, of course.
I went to London a lot as a young designer because London was a major inspiration, not only for the clothes but the sense of freedom. I remember going to see a stage production of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" in the mid Eighties and loving the mix of Goth and humor, and in my shows I've always liked to play jokes and have fun.
I'm still astounded by some people's reaction to things I consider quite normal.
I am very lucky because I am realizing my childhood dreams, and after presenting my shows it's like a party.
I know what I am able and not able to do. Fashion? OK. Fashion... clothes in theatre, in an opera, in a concert - all that I love. To make a movie myself... no!
I could say that making clothes is my way of communicating, because I was always so shy.
I was lucky to have parents who loved me.
I start each collection thinking how I can refresh my classics.
If it's too fashiony, it's not interesting to me.
When I started in fashion, I had already adopted the sailor-striped sweater as my uniform; that way, I wouldn't have to drive myself crazy trying to figure out what to wear.
Doing fashion drawings was the only way I had to express myself when I was a teenager.
It's good that there is more support of diversity but there is still a lot of resistance. I never saw it as fighting for a cause, though, for me it was spontaneous, I was doing what felt natural to me. I felt a part of it. I have always been attracted to what is new, interesting, funny, creative, the good things that were happening at that time in the world.
I will stay in my bed!
My clothes have always been expensive. Even though I have had a few lower-priced lines over the years, little by little everything I do tends toward the luxury market.
I have always been drawn to designing fashions that are rebellious, like black leather jackets on suburban kinds, a corset dress, punk, blue jeans. I love that. Fashion changes all the time, and what is considered extreme or elegant or luxurious (or not luxurious) is changing all the time.
People are so codified - it's sad.
Do you know that cats can't wear corsets? They can't stand! Not at all! They just fall over. I know because I tried!
In America, women are powerful and strong, determined. If they want to be an object, they choose to be in control.
I've always felt more at home in the UK than in France.
All of my life shown me that if you wanted something enough, if you were passionate enough, it would happen.
I don't like dreams or reality. I like when dreams become reality because that is my life.
My only fashion school was what I saw in the newspapers and on television
It is beautiful to be what you are.
People are fed up with something when it becomes more and more popular.
When I first started to do fashion shows I didn't have the budget to hire top models so I would cast women who inspired me, and ask them to walk how they walked. I was doing a mise en scène, which for me was normal. I love for people to see my clothes, but it was more about the attitude of the girls. The revues of the late 19th century/early 20th century were very much a reflection of what was happening in society and politics, and for me that is also the role of the fashion designer.
Sometimes I have chosen to see films just by their posters.
When I do my collection, it is in a way my own story.
I can not forget Melina Mercouri in black dress at 'Never on Sunday'.
You see me, I wanted to be fashion designer. I became fashion designer. So I think that everything is possible.
People think that everyone wears black in France; in fact they all wear grey.
What is masculine and what is feminine, anyway? Why should men not show that they can be fragile or seductive? I am only happy when there is no discrimination.
My eccentricity became direction.
There are many kinds of beauty, and you can find it where you least expect.
I take life as it happens. And I give myself a lot of freedom.
Dressing is a pleasure; clothes are not a joke.
The shock of the way I mix patterns and fabrics can be disconcerting, but what I am trying to do is provoke new ideas about how pieces can be put together in different ways. I think this is a more modern way to wear clothes that in themselves are fairly classic.
My best experiences with movies have come when I didn't know what to see.
Elegance is a question of personality, more than one's clothing.
Fashion is about what you look like, which translates to what you would like to be like.
For me, difference is beautiful, there is not only one beauty, and in a collection I always like to show mixed directions. When you look at people or things, there are all these codes and standards that come into play around what is considered ugly or beautiful, and I've always questioned that. When you're a kid, you're not conditioned, you don't see perversity, there's a state of innocence where everything is beautiful, you see differently....I am lucky because I am doing now what I dreamt of doing as a child, and I like to think that I've retained a childlike state of mind.
The great thing about American women is their energy and the way they love to dress.
I would like to say to people, open your eyes and find beauty where you normally don't expect it.
I am impressed by the way Annie Kevans captured the different types of beauties that have been my inspiration and my muses from my grandmother to artists like David Bowie and Boy George.
Always my collections are made of different influences.
The great thing about American women is their energy and the way they love to dress. French women don't really dress; they are too conservative, as it's always a question of money. In America, women are powerful and strong, determined. If they want to be an object, they choose to be in control.
I love and admire everyone who is different. I love that. The 'jet set' is banal. 'Good taste' is banal. Eccentricity is chic. Good taste paralyzes. But punk or street fashion or a tattoo-covered body, that is interesting to me, and that I love. I didn't go to fashion school. I learned from watching couture shows on TV and reading magazines. That made me dream.
I am 1952. I masticate. I am like a big stomach.
I don't know exactly what is my impact, but I can say I am doing fashion my own way.
In France, history is paralyzing.
I have loved corsets since I was small. When I was a child, my grandmother took me to an exhibition, and they had a corset on display. I loved the flesh color, the salmon satin, the lace.
When people have good energy, I feel it. And generally I feel that people do like me. And that makes me very happy.
