Go-To Gifts for Graduates

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. I sometimes feel that a pattern is almost a fashion statement in itself. 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. 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. I wish I had invented blue jeans. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity - all I hope for in my clothes.

I like the things around me to be beautiful and slightly dreamy, with a feeling of worldliness. It's a philosophy of life. A practice. If you do this, something will change, what will change is that you will change, your life will change, and if you can change you, you can perhaps change the world. You can't just buy things for the label - it's ridiculous. Fashion should be fun. It shouldn't be labelled intellectual. Design is a constant challenge to balance comfort with luxe, the practical with the desirable.

My breakfast is very important. 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. I am always locked in my design studio. We must never confuse elegance with snobbery. 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 do not have one theme for each season, I just try to make beautiful clothes all year round. Fashions fade, style is eternal. I couldn't love a woman who inspired me to be totally disinterested. If I fell in love with a woman for an artistic reason, or from the point of view of my work, I think it would rob her of something. What you wear is how you present yourself to the world, especially today when human contacts go so fast. Fashion is instant language. I've always thought of the T-shirt as the Alpha and Omega of the fashion alphabet.

Everything I do is a matter of heart, body and soul. I like the irony in my work. It's useless to send models out on the runway to cry. Fashion never stops. There is always the new project, the new opportunity. I love a black wedding dress.

Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty.

It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity. My learning process is by eye alone; it's not at all scientific. An evening dress that reveals a woman's ankles while walking is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. It's useless to send models out on the runway to cry. A lot of self-importance goes on in the fashion industry. I'm not like that.

I like things simple. 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. Design and style should work toward making you look good and feel good without a lot of effort so you can get on with the things that matter. I am especially grateful that I have been able to keep my own style over the decades, in spite of the many changes that have taken place in the world of fashion and in its business. All I did my first year at Vogue was Xerox.