You’re only as good as your last collection, which is an enormous pressure. I think there is something about luxury – it’s not something people need, but it’s what they want. It really pulls at their heart. I have a fantastic relationship with money. I use it to buy my freedom. I’ve treated the waistcoat as if it were a corset, so that it becomes the first layer in the process of putting clothes on the body. There is constant motion between layering and revealing. 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.

“The passage is attributed to an unknown typesetter in the 15th century who is thought to have scrambled parts of Cicero’s De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum for use in a type specimen book.”– Neil Borton

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. The key to my collections is sensuality. I like the body. I like to design everything to do with the body. For me, the summer will be pure gray – mother-of-pearl gray, very pale gray. To me, this is the big statement for summer. Then we have light blue, light turquoise, lots of pink. I wish I had invented blue jeans. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity – all I hope for in my clothes.

I am convinced that you don’t need to spend a fortune to look like a million. I’ve always thought of the T-shirt as the Alpha and Omega of the fashion alphabet. Success isn’t about the end result, it’s about what you learn along the way. I still appreciate individuality. Style is much more interesting than fashion, really. 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 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 do not have one theme for each season, I just try to make beautiful clothes all year round. Fashion can be this mysterious thing that you can’t explain.

I am convinced that there can be luxury in simplicity. 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.