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. Luxury will be always around, no matter what happens in the world. I think I’d go mad if I didn’t have a place to escape to. I love my beauty. It’s not my fault. The great thing about fashion is that it always looks forward.

Comfort is very important to me. I think people live better in big houses and in big clothes. My customers are successful workingwomen. I sometimes feel that a pattern is almost a fashion statement in itself. 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. Even Michelangelo got paid for doing the Sistine Chapel. To those artists who say they’re doing it for the love of art, I say: Get real.

It is not easy to dress well. I think the idea of mixing luxury and mass-market fashion is very modern, very now – no one wears head-to-toe designer anymore. I think it’s the responsibility of a designer to try to break rules and barriers. Design is a series of creative choices – it’s a collaborative effort, an evolutionary process. You choose your fabrics depending upon what you want to say, then you work with mills to get those fabrics. Through the process, you realize what you want it to be. Fashions fade, style is eternal.

My breakfast is very important. 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. Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future. Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity. I believe in comfort. If you don’t feel comfortable in your clothes, it’s hard to think of anything else.

Fashion is a very stressful place to work because of the demands of doing the shows – no one expects a writer to produce two books a year on the dot – but it’s also a very toxic place to work. The key to my collections is sensuality. I don’t try to be in fashion; I don’t try to follow trends. You just end up out of fashion that way. Fashion is made to become unfashionable. If you wear clothes that don’t suit you, you’re a fashion victim. You have to wear clothes that make you look better.

Online media is increasingly influential in fashion. Confidence. If you have it, you can make anything look good. It is important to be chic. Online media is increasingly influential in fashion. Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future.

You can hide so much behind theatrics, and I don’t need to do that any more. Elegance isn’t solely defined by what you wear. It’s how you carry yourself, how you speak, what you read. Attention to detail is of utmost importance when you want to look good. I think the idea of mixing luxury and mass-market fashion is very modern, very now – no one wears head-to-toe designer anymore. Clothes mean nothing until someone lives in them.

Brides today are increasingly sensitive to the tastes, feelings and finances of their attendants. I think God is the most fantastic designer. I don’t like trends. They tend to make everybody look the same. I’d like to believe that the women who wear my clothes are not dressing for other people, that they’re wearing what they like and what suits them. It’s not a status thing. 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.