INES DE LA FRESSANGE

You can go out and hate everybody, hate your age, and hate all the things you don't have but it will show; you have the face you deserve.

Life is never what it seems - and that’s the great thing about it

I had no luck when I started out as a model. I keep telling people that it's the only career in the world that you can't choose for yourself - you have to be chosen.

The secret of great style is to feel good in what you wear

Even if you live in a tiny village, there's an Internet site. It's quite easy to find clothes, but sometimes women don't know how to mix them.

One thing Della Valle taught me is the power to say no if something isn't right. That mattered even over sales. Now it's rolling and finally, after having been PR, boutique director, operator, messenger, and everything else, I'm finally in the role I like the most - court jester. And that's what I was doing at Chanel before.

I saw a lot of haute couture all my childhood, and without knowing it I've learned from when I was a child to recognise beautiful fabrics.

Matching shoes and bags immediately age you by 10 years.

People imagine I am always in a Bentley with pearls and diamonds and black glasses and Karl Lagerfeld next to me.

It's important to keep up the idea of the brand, even beyond sales.

It is true that in France, women put on less things. If they have a necklace, they don't put on earrings; if they have nail polish, they don't put on all their rings and all their bracelets.

I saw a lot of haute couture all my childhood, and without knowing it I've learned from when I was a child to recognise beautiful fabrics.

Buying a matching blouse and skirt from the same store is a crime. A clever mix of chic and cheap hits the jackpot. Know how to mix styles and labels.

Matching shoes and bags immediately age you by 10 years.

Often something more simple would be better. Sometimes I put things together - a shirt, a sweater, a jacket - and it's too complicated. I would have worn only a v-neck sweater, it would have been better. It's not the clothes but it's how you wear them sometimes.

People imagine I am always in a Bentley with pearls and diamonds and black glasses and Karl Lagerfeld next to me.

One thing Della Valle taught me is the power to say no if something isn't right. That mattered even over sales.

Even if you live in a tiny village, there's an Internet site. It's quite easy to find clothes, but sometimes women don't know how to mix them.

I had no luck when I started out as a model. I keep telling people that it's the only career in the world that you can't choose for yourself - you have to be chosen.

Overall when you work in fashion, you're always in a rush. You're always a little late, always in a hurry. Every single moment's important, so you never have enough time to do what you want to do. It's ridiculous.

I would love to live in India or in the South of France, but Roger Vivier doesn't have offices yet in New Delhi or Jaipur.

If you don't feel comfortable in a plunging sweater, skin-tight jeans and killer heels, go home and change.

Life is never what it seems - and that’s the great thing about it

I think the essence of fashion is lightness, frivolity, and I'm very nostalgic for the time when Bérard was doing the windows, Cocteau was writing a play, Chanel did the costumes, Bérard did the sets. I don't have to tell you this, because Colette was the first to have revived the Rue St.-Honoré by precisely doing windows that attract people. And I really like that spontaneous spirit. And so, you're lucky to be with Colette, because it's a magic word.

Well, that's why I really love Diego Della Valle, because he's crazy. Instead of going out to find a top business school graduate, for whom it would have taken five years to see the difference between a ballet shoe and a book, he asked me to revive the label. It's a bit like Balenciaga. Brands like Vivier are pillars - they are monuments of fashion; they are names we don't forget. But the general public doesn't necessarily know that and therefore we had to get the name re-known.

One thing Della Valle taught me is the power to say no if something isn't right. That mattered even over sales. Now it's rolling and finally, after having been PR, boutique director, operator, messenger, and everything else, I'm finally in the role I like the most - court jester. And that's what I was doing at Chanel before.

I was going to the flea markets to buy furniture. It was getting done the way it was getting done - on a small scale and with a lot of soul and heart and risk. We did fashion like fashion was done before - spontaneously, with joy and freedom, and that's what created our identity.

Fashion is made up of paradoxes. There was a key moment in fashion. When the Japanese first arrived - Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto, and all - I have to humbly admit that I didn't understand the importance of it at all. It was Jean-Jacques Picart who explained it to me. They had a huge influence in that they showed that aestheticism could be different from prettiness, that there was beauty and that beauty was beyond pretty.

The secret of great style is to feel good in what you wear

It's important to keep up the idea of the brand, even beyond sales.

You can go out and hate everybody, hate your age, and hate all the things you don't have but it will show; you have the face you deserve.