I was kind of ashamed of my bourgeois family as a teenager, I guess - I had dreadlocks, shopped in thrift stores and pretended I had no money. At that time, I would have spat on a girl who was buying Yves Saint Laurent.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
At Yves Saint Laurent, I felt like the son-in-law - like I was part of the family, but not quite. When I was fired, I felt like the widow.
Yves Saint Laurent was the first person who made me feel like a woman.
I was a very lucky child because at the age of 16, 17 years old, my parents would buy me clothes from Yves Saint Laurent, which was an incredible luxury at the time, but I was attracted to that whole world. I had a pretty nice little wardrobe by the age of 17.
In high school, it was very fashionable to be disdainful of the bourgeois suburbs, but I secretly liked them.
Yves Saint Laurent was my first fashion show. I wore his tuxedo. And Helmut Newton was my first photographer, in 1973. I was really very lucky. I had an amazing career.
You have no idea how humiliating it was, as a boy, to suddenly have all your clothes, your toys, snatched by the bailiff. I mean we were a middle-class family, it's not as if it was happening up and down the street. It made me ashamed, I felt dirty.
I started dressing vintage when I was a teenager because I didn't have money for designer clothes.
I was always embarrassed because my dad wore a suit and my mother wore flat pumps and a cozy jumper while my friends' parents were punks or hippies.
My earliest influences were Coco Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent.
I was poor white trash, no glitter, no glamour, but I'm not ashamed of anything.