Images have enormous power, and images freed from deep within ourselves can change us profoundly.
Somehow, we have gotten off track from the basics of health and spirituality, and we get in our own way.
I make 98% of my collection in New York City and am generating jobs, so fashion isn't just frivolous for me. I understand levity about it. I also understand the depth of it.
I am not the kind of designer who is racing to the finish line, so while collaborations are important for our growth, each and every one has to be strategic and well-timed with what we have going on internally.
I am a helicopter pilot. Something that gives me pleasure sometimes is taking my helicopter to go high, 2000 meter, 6000 feet, to go there and feel like a bird. In this moment I feel free.
I'm not suggesting that microbial cellulose is going to be a replacement for cotton, leather or other textile materials. But I do think it could be quite a smart and sustainable addition to our increasingly precious natural resources.
As a designer, I think you just have to make sure you know what you want and stay true to it. You need to have conviction and really just want to make people think in regards to doing interesting things.
I've always dressed the same. I've never made a fashion mistake. I've always worn utilitarian. I started my collection because I wanted certain specific things, but before that it was vintage and classic Brooks Brothers.
Seersucker and khaki suits are the key to looking put-together in the summer. I also wear shorts year-round. And I would never say never, but I don't wear sandals. With shorts, it's wing tips and tennis socks.
The reality is that I spent years in the factories in Italy when I first set up Jimmy Choo. Today, everyone who has a job at Jimmy Choo, I've done their job - right down to the cleaner.
There have been moments in my career when I've had to be tough and I've had to step up to the plate - but usually that's because a man has underestimated me. But other than that, I wouldn't say I'm a tough person.
When I entered the market, I was rejected because the elite say that you have to sell things at a certain price point. My position was that the consumer is smarter than that. Who cares if it's $200, not $2,000?
It was never my desire to revolutionize fashion, to make clothes that could be in a museum. I want to create clothes that have a certain style, but I want to see them used. I want to see people enjoy the things I've made.
But in another, I think a woman's going to go into a shop to find a coat or a jacket and I just don't think she's not going to go into a shop because of a bad review she probably didn't even read.
I don't think there is just one Louis Vuitton woman. That is why, for the fall/winter 2011 show, I loved the idea of lots of different characters - a wife, a mistress, a girlfriend - stepping out of the row of hotel elevators.
The red carpet doesn't interest me. I think people become all the same; it's like everyone posing from the three-quarter angle in some low-cut, fitted dress; it's all the same.
In my own creations, the earliest influence came from the ancient civilisations of Egypt, China, Africa and Persia. In fact, one of my earlier creations was a range of tunics, made from silk procured from the islands of Madagascar.
My inspiration is endless; I can't define it. It is a constant flow and evolution. In general, I'm taking it from everywhere. People get nervous when they walk with me, as I'll see something and suddenly have to text it to myself.
I am always attracted to the moments when a person who is associated with a certain message, image or sensibility evolves. I am very interested in how audiences respond to that maturation and absorb the evolution.
My own brand will stand or fall because of me. Dior won't fall if I fall. It will also still stand if I'm not there. I'm coming in there, and it's like a - I don't know the English word - like a passage.
When I was in college at the University of Pennsylvania, where I studied international relations and French, I studied abroad in Paris for a semester. I think when you're there, you can't help but be immersed in fashion because it's such a part of th...
