“Fashion designers are dictators of taste.”

I’ve survived quite a few generations. That’s because I never lost my enthusiasm. I wake up every morning like on Christmas Day, waiting for the gifts.

It’s up to you to make everyday as perfect as possible. It’s a question of will and discipline.

People who say that yesterday was better than today are ultimately devaluing their own existence.

You have to like the present; if not your life becomes secondhand, if you think it was better before. Or that it will be better in the future.

Life is not a beauty contest, some [ugly people] are great. What I hate is nasty, ugly people… the worst is ugly, short men. Women can be short, but for men it is impossible. It is something that they will not forgive in life… they are mean and they want to kill you.

If you’re not ready to do a non-stop dialogue with fashion, you should do another job.

I don’t like standard beauty – there is no beauty without strangeness.

I only know how to play one role: me.

When I was 14, I wanted to smoke because my mother smoked like mad. I wanted to smoke to look grown-up. But my mother said: ‘You shouldn’t smoke. Your hands are not that beautiful and that shows when you smoke.

Be politically correct, but please don’t bother other people with conversation about being politically correct, because that’s the end of everything. You want to create boredom? Be politically correct in your conversation.

I think tattoos are horrible. It’s like living in a Pucci dress full-time.

When I was a child, I never played with other children. I hated them.

When you hear designers complaining about the challenge of their profession, you have to say: don’t get carried away-it’s only dresses.

Clear thinking at the wrong moment can stifle creativity.

The smell of a freshly printed book is the best smell in the world.

My only ambition in life . . . is to wear size 28 jeans.