I collect objects I fall in love with more than antiques per se. Value is not a criteria that attracts me to something.
My morning routine varies by how much time I have. In the winter, I like to take baths, but in the summer, I prefer a good shower with some soap and then maybe some moisturizer afterward. I use D.R. Harris and Geo. F. Trumper products, which we also stock at our shops in Paris and Antwerp.
My partner, Patrick, and I live in an old house in Belgium that was built in 1840 and is out in the countryside between Antwerp and Brussels.
Various different people have inspired me throughout my career. From Francis Bacon to Vassareli, Coco Chanel to Christian Dior, Cecil Beaton, musicians, architects... the list is endless.
Coincidence is important, the convergence of different ideas.
My office looks very empty compared with my house. The house is completely crammed full with things that Patrick and I love. It's very eclectic. There are things that have no value but which we like. We have a lot of Belgian painters; we have international painters. We have nice things; we have ugly things. I don't want that things are predictable.
I was a kid at the end of the 1960s and in the early 1970s, so a lot of things changed. You had pop music coming up, with David Bowie, you had new television programmes and all these things. I was fascinated.
I love the journeys of research and discovery their development takes me on. I see prints as less 'decorative' than many might, and more fundamental to a garment's core.
I'm a fashion designer, not a shoe designer. I like to design clothes.
I think in the same way when I'm cooking, when I'm gardening, when I'm choosing fabrics. It's a way of living.
I like it when you have something happening by coincidence. Just something in a book is enough. But I prefer a fragment of an image so you are far more free to bring in elements of your own.
People get this very romantic vision of a fashion designer who in one night makes 25 sketches and in the morning throws them on the table and there are a lot of women in white aprons with the pins on the lapel and they start to grab the sketches and... It's not like that.
Many a fashion designer's career was founded using packs upon packs of Polaroids, and though we love them, we forget that the image quality was often circumspect.
When I get very stressed, I make jam. I like things that produce a quick result, because fashion has such a long lead time. With jam, you start, and two-three hours later, you have 36 little pots, all full.
Sometimes, to stimulate your imagination you have to be careful you don't have too much information. You can Google something, and it's in your face, pow! You don't have time to dream any more about it.
I'm known for color and prints and embroideries.
Picasso took scraps of wallpaper, and instead of using paint and a brush, he used all the existing elements which he made his artwork with.
I prefer to see a good exhibit sponsored by a brand than a bad exhibit due to lack of funds.
I have my own office, and I'm there during the evenings and weekends. But during the week, I'm sitting in the middle of my studio, talking with everybody, deciding together every detail, every pallette, every yarn, every colour.
