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I think that a woman that is elegant herself is somebody who can dress herself easily and effortlessly.

The little black dress expresses a moment of freedom and individuality every time.

Elegance isn't solely defined by what you wear. It's how you carry yourself, how you speak, what you read.

Elegance is all in the mind of the wearer.

Isn't elegance forgetting what one is wearing?

Elegance is innate. It has nothing to do with being well dressed. Elegance is refusal.

I don't really believe in elegance. Ever since I first came to France many years ago to do the Chambre Syndicale course, I always felt I was somehow lacking, first of all being British - obviously a disaster! But I was also puzzled with this idea that you have to tie your Hermes scarf just right, or you can only wear black.

Fashion for my mother was about asserting and demonstrating you had aesthetics, tastes, sensibility, manners, beauty - qualities that black people were always trying to prove they possessed, because it was often assumed that we didn't.

Don't get me wrong, I admire elegance and have an appreciation of the finer things in life. But to me, beauty lies in simplicity.