HUBERT DE GIVENCHY

You have to know when to stop - that's wisdom.

I haven't really got a green thumb, but I love gardens and their architecture.

As time passes, we like to simplify our lives.

I am of tradition, but that doesn't mean I have an old outlook on life.

Balenciaga was my religion. Since I'm a believer, for me, there's Balenciaga, and the good Lord.

Each of my garments is something special in itself. You give all your energy to each piece, to each creation, and I have no favourite. I love all of them equally.

I had the fortune to evolve at a time when fashion was very important, and women dressed themselves very well. A woman who dressed very well also had a husband who would have beautiful collections of art and decorative objects.

It gives you a good feeling. Each year, you rediscover in a garden the magic of life. A flower arrives, and it is a miracle. The leaves fall in the autumn, and it looks fantastic. There is a tenderness about a garden, and you can't help but be sensitive to that.

Encouragement helps you to go one step more, become better.

A piece of material has a life. You must never upset it if you want the material to speak.

Fashion should evolve slowly, without any revolution.

To be a couture designer is not only to create dresses but to adapt your line to your private customers. It is why couture is expensive. You are like a doctor.

If fashion is good, it has no epoch.

Clients become very attached to the fitter who they feel understands them.

If I had to start over, I'll do the same thing: street clothes are the future; the client can choose two or three things and combine them as she wants.

I don't think I am avant-garde. I made a lot of creations and created harmony with my fabrics, but I was not like Balenciaga, for example, although he was, of course, a great inspiration.

It's a fabulous thing to give life to fabric, to make something move well, the harmony of colour.

Of course everyone dreams of living in the 17th or the 18th century because of the costumes, but there were so many incommodities.

To have lived your dream is very rare in life. I am a very happy man. I have been so fortunate.

It is important to work. It is important for my mind.

Balenciaga taught me everything I know. He taught me to care for the details, that it was not necessary to sew on a button where it had no use or to add a flower to make a dress beautiful... no unnecessary detail.

I think when you sell your company and are no longer the master of driving it, it's quite difficult.

When you see the best of the best - when you see a Matisse or a Picasso - what interests you is the creativity and harmony.

I've stopped making frocks, but not making discoveries.

I dreamed of fashion as a little boy.