I love art and music more than I love fashion to be honest
The aborigines in Australia the way they dress is very honest; it's not about: "Oh you wear a skirt you're gay.
No matter how much people in fashion think we're so cool and avant-garde for most fashion people creativity is quite taboo.
I used to hate to go to school because when it was Friday afternoon and everybody was finished school I knew I was going to work Saturday and Sunday.
I think my heart is in a very good place. And I think this is why I'm achieving what I've been asking to do in the universe for so long.
I brought a lot of the codification of womenswear to menswear. Why? Because when I was a child I was wearing women's clothes adjusted to me.
In the beginning I didn't want to do a menswear collection. It felt a little forced. And then I found that it was an amazing world.
Black is always elegant. It is the most complete colour in the whole world made of all the colours in the palette.
Couture is more your own world they come and buy head-to-toe - they buy the jewelry bags coats dresses bodies underneath.... But couture is not dead - it's taken another shape.
When I was far away when I prayed every night I felt I was very near with my heart with my brain to my sisters and my mom.
I come from a very poor family with sisters. I never really knew my father so I miss this strong image of a man in my life.
For me darkness is something very beautiful
I didn't know I was going to become a designer; I was going to become a successful person but I really wanted to be free.
I can give a beautiful present and that may change the lives of people around me.
My friends were like "Oh this weekend we're going to go shopping." "Oh this weekend I'm going to go to see the judo champion" ... you know. And I couldn't do anything.
My life has changed financially and I have a name but I try to never forget people on my journey.
The couture client wants the latest things but she wants the clothes to be super-special - the fabrics won't even touch or go near anything like prêt-à -porter.
In prêt-à -porter now we understandably need to make the collection satisfy the big market more so couture is extra special.
Religion and love don't have a price don't have a gender a skin color nothing. We are all on the same plate.
These five years as a couturier have really changed my way of seeing fashion and my confidence with fashion. Couture is a dream.
Couture is emotion. Couture is freedom. Couture is not thinking about pricing and not thinking about craziness. You can do whatever you want to do in couture.
I believe that couture is not about shocking.
I've got what I want and I've got the luck to express myself and to be paid and to do what I do as a creative person.
When I was 12 I used to dress as a woman in the house. At the time cross-dressing was a big taboo in Italy. It was better to have a son who was a drug addict than a cross-dresser.
I always think about the streets because that's where I come from and that's where I'm going to die one day. That is my life.
I had only two girlfriends. I didn't have many friends because I was staying at home and dreaming - drawing and dreaming.
My definition of beauty is something between extremely ugly and extremely fantastic.
I tried to never exclude people. I know what it means to be left out.
This is why I decided to work with Nike too because it is even more mass-market than Givenchy and could make entry-price shoes and make people dream to be part of the journey.
When I started at 9 I was working with plaster. I worked with a florist. It was a little illegal for kids to work. They would give you tips because they couldn't really give you wages.
I'm very faithful to myself. When you do things that are true it just comes out quite instinctively.
At the beginning I didn't see what Givenchy could give my career. It was like "Okay I'll do it for the money for a few years to help my mom and my sisters.
Anything I do I do with my heart. This is why I sometimes get very upset or sometimes get very personal when I'm working.
People's wardrobes in history are something that society and culture imposed. But sexuality is not about the way you dress.
Seduction is about intelligence and wit. Someone who makes me laugh has every chance to seduce me.
I am interested in beauty when it has something special and mysterious.
I try to destroy taboo in fashion-which is something I learned as a kid. I come from the street and you have to be a survivor
I'm very well off but I can stay with normal people. I can do a super-luxury life but I can do a very normal life and I'm not scared.
I was a very nice boy. I was well-educated ... very Catholic family. So I was very respectful never late at work. I was always the last one to leave. It's always been that way in my life.
I've always been obsessed with things that are half animal and half human - like mermaids and Minotaurs - because they are trapped in an animal body. And I felt trapped in my own life.