I never really have to sit at a desk thinking, 'What should I do now?' It doesn't work like that for me, and it never has. My thinking process is constant.

I'm very scared sometimes that fashion might attack its own magic by the amount of exposure.

You cannot have adoration without being criticized.

Well, my own men’s collection always felt very free back in the days before Jil. Once you make it this kind of dialogue with other people, with a fashion show and clients and whatever, it becomes something else. Free meets not so free.

Unlike fashion, art isn’t applied. It doesn’t have to serve anybody. It doesn’t have to be there for any other reason than to give an impression of what the world is about.

If I see a fashion show with literal influences, it doesn’t make me think any more. It doesn’t make me dream.

You do what you do. Or you do what you have to do. I don’t know how to explain it better. I think that in the moment, you can’t see connections, but sometimes afterwards you do.

I never really have to sit at a desk thinking, “What should I do now?” It doesn’t work like that for me, and it never has. My thinking process is constant. The difference is that once I was in Antwerp only doing two men’s shows a year. And the weird thing is I thought I was busy then.

It felt wrong for me to stay totally connected to that very strict way of approaching the heritage – what it can be, what it cannot be. That was also the period where I really thought, “No, let’s open it up.”

I would prefer to use the word free. I think the Dior thing is so much freer. There was not so much free about Jil’s way of working.