“Over the years I have learned that what is important in a dress is the woman who is wearing it.”

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.

Chanel freed women, and I empowered them.

I love women. I love all the bright and attractive people and things of this world, the flame and also the moth, the dancer and the dance.

Decadence attracts me. It suggests a new world, and, for me, society’s struggle between life and death is absolutely beautiful.

I was born with a nervous breakdown.

Finding your own style is not easy, but once found it brings complete happiness. It gives you self-confidence, always.

Fashions come and go, but style is forever.

Fashion is defined by what later becomes out of fashion.

Without elegance of the heart, there is no elegance.

Haute couture consists of secrets whispered from generation to generation,

I’d really like to be in closer contact with life. I’m a little too distant, I guess. I like to place myself outside.

I find men’s clothing fascinating because sometime between, say, 1930 and 1936 a handful of basic shapes were created and still prevail as a sort of scale of expression, with which every man can project his own personality and his own dignity.

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.

Elegance and beauty have been banished.

I love bows, … And I feel some couture pots coming on.

I created for my era and I tried to foresee what tomorrow would be.

Or try out what I learned and see how it worked with an audience, because where are you gonna get an audience?

I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.

I do original songs in the style of other artists, where I try to learn all their musical idiosyncrasies and try to do something that sounds like them and yet is a bit more sick and twisted.

My first language was shy. It’s only by having been thrust into the limelight that I have learned to cope with my shyness.

Learning (Shakespeare’s plays) …in school was a bit of a bore.

I’ve learned how to use my spam filter pretty effectively.

Of all the girls I ever knew some loved and some denied me And all the words I ever said have been no use to hide me.

There’s something to learn from it. I’ve had movies that have failed colossally, so you kind of analyze your failures.