I have an obsession with details and pattern. Fashion to me has become very disposable; I wanted to get back to craft, to clothes that could last. Beauty is perfect in its imperfections, so you just have to go with the imperfections. It is important to be chic. You can’t just buy things for the label – it’s ridiculous. Attention to detail is of utmost importance when you want to look good. Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury. My aim is to make the poor look rich and the rich look poor. I can design a collection in a day and I always do, cause I’ve always got a load of Italians on my back, moaning that it’s late. Fashion is to please your eye. Shapes and proportions are for your intellect.

I don’t try to be in fashion, I don’t try to follow trends. You just end up out of fashion that way. I have my favourite fashion decade, yes, yes, yes: ’60s. It was a sort of little revolution; the clothes were amazing but not too exaggerated. I am not interested in the past, except as the road to the future. It’s useless to send models out on the runway to cry. It’s useless to send models out on the runway to cry.

I have an obsession with details and pattern. Fashion to me has become very disposable; I wanted to get back to craft, to clothes that could last. Beauty is perfect in its imperfections, so you just have to go with the imperfections. It is important to be chic. You can’t just buy things for the label – it’s ridiculous.

– Markus Zusak

Brides today are increasingly sensitive to the tastes, feelings and finances of their attendants. You can only go forward by making mistakes. I am what I am. Before I was not so proud to make fashion. My family thought fashion wasn’t very interesting. So I hid that. I try as much as possible to give you a great basic product and what comes out, I feel, is really amazing. Money is the most corrosive aspect of life today because it means that all attention to detail is forgotten.

Fashion moves so quickly that, unless you have a strong point of view, you can lose integrity.

I can’t get sucked into that celebrity thing, because I think it’s just crass. I like the body. I like to design everything to do with the body. Fashion can be this mysterious thing that you can’t explain. I adore the challenge of creating truly modern clothes, where a woman’s personality and sense of self are revealed. I want people to see the dress, but focus on the woman.

I think it’s the responsibility of a designer to try to break rules and barriers. I don’t like trends. They tend to make everybody look the same. We look our best in subdued colors, sophisticated cuts, and a general air of sleek understatement. Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity. We have got to change our ethics and our financial system and our whole way of understanding the world. It has to be a world in which people live rather than die; a sustainable world. It could be great.

Fashion is about dressing according to what’s fashionable. Style is more about being yourself. For me, art is about learning and about living with people. It’s alive. I was the first person to have a punk rock hairstyle. What you wear is how you present yourself to the world, especially today when human contacts go so fast. Fashion is instant language. War taught me that not everything is glamorous.

1. Clothes can transform your mood and confidence. My learning process is by eye alone; it’s not at all scientific. My relationships with producers or photographers – these are relationships that took years. Clothes can transform your mood and confidence. Dressing is a way of life.
   

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2. I have a fantastic relationship with money. I use it to buy my freedom. Women are more sure of themselves today. They don’t have to emulate the way men dress. You have to always work against what you did before, and even against your taste. I love you if you love me.
   

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3. We have got to change our ethics and our financial system and our whole way of understanding the world. It has to be a world in which people live rather than die; a sustainable world. It could be great.

My breakfast is very important. Fashion never stops. There is always the new project, the new opportunity. I don’t really know how to do casual clothes. My shows are about the complete woman who swallows it all. It’s a question of survival. I love a black wedding dress.

You have to stay true to your heritage; that’s what your brand is about. We must never confuse elegance with snobbery. There are always protests, whether you do something good or bad. Even if you do something beneficial, people say you do it because it’s advertising. It is important to be chic. I love you if you love me.

We have got to change our ethics and our financial system and our whole way of understanding the world. It has to be a world in which people live rather than die; a sustainable world. It could be great. I like to be real. I don’t like things to be staged or fussy. You’re only as good as your last collection, which is an enormous pressure. I do not have one theme for each season, I just try to make beautiful clothes all year round. If you wear clothes that don’t suit you, you’re a fashion victim. You have to wear clothes that make you look better.

I love women’s fashion, but women don’t need me as much as men do. It’s the men who have nothing to wear. What I hate is nasty, ugly people. I’m used to always deciding everything myself. It’s a blessing, but also a terrible defect. Attitude is everything. I can’t get sucked into that celebrity thing, because I think it’s just crass.

I get ideas about what’s essential when packing my suitcase. I was the first person to have a punk rock hairstyle. I like the body. I like to design everything to do with the body. I am not interested in the past, except as the road to the future. I love the 2000s because everyone started to love haute couture.

It pains me physically to see a woman victimized, rendered pathetic, by fashion. I didn’t want to be a fashion designer, and for a good half of my career I didn’t like it. I always wanted to do other things. Every day I’m thinking about change. Jeans represent democracy in fashion. 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.

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. That is the key of this collection, being yourself. Don’t be into trends. Don’t make fashion own you, but you decide what you are, what you want to express by the way you dress and the way to live. I sometimes feel that a pattern is almost a fashion statement in itself. I do not have one theme for each season, I just try to make beautiful clothes all year round. People said making clothes inside out was not proper. I disagreed, because clothes that are inside out are as beautiful as a cathedral.

Fashion is about dressing according to what’s fashionable. Style is more about being yourself. Awkwardness gives me great comfort. I’ve never been cool, but I’ve felt cool. I’ve been in the cool place, but I wasn’t really cool – I was trying to pass for hip or cool. It’s the awkwardness that’s nice. I think I’d go mad if I didn’t have a place to escape to. If you cut a painter’s hands off, he’d still feel the urge to pick up a brush. 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.