I remember my first year at Givenchy some people wrote in a review that I was Antichrist, and I’m the most Catholic person in the world…. But what I did at the beginning, it was very punk because I didn’t really respect very much the DNA. In the same way punks: They weren’t respecting their own blood of England, going against the government, the politics. I respected what Hubert de Givenchy had done, but I did my own interpretation, and my own honest interpretation was very dark. To not do couture anymore as, like, big ballroom dresses and queens arriving with horses, but working on the construction and destroying and experimenting with fabrics and making languid shapes, not stiff in a very old couture way. Doing the womenswear not like a [traditional] runway show, but doing a very slow, emotional performance…. I’m very shocked myself today looking back nine years ago. I don’t know if it was very emotional or very honest or what it was, but I really didn’t care about anybody. I got criticized a lot at the beginning, and it didn’t scare me, because I would really believe that I was there for a reason.

Ricardo Tisci