‘When I started to create collections under my own name, all the women were wearing gypsy outfits. High street fashion revolved around an ample dress, tiered over a burlesque cascade of petticoats, peasant shirts, and other borrowings from Eastern folklore. That was back in 1978 and I had the impression that we were never going to see the end of it. This self-indulgence had become unbearable to me. And so my desire was to put some backbone into all of that. To offer a new structure of clothes. To return to fabrics of a beautiful quality’.

Interview in ENCENS n°25, photographed by Sybille Walter and styled by Samuel Drira