And I wondered what appealed to you about this gruesome drama at such a young age?

Because I was already very, very gay, very dramatic.

So secretly.

No, I think the thing was that, I mean, my parents divorced when I was a child, when I was a very young tree.

And my brother stopped going to see my dad for multiple reasons and lawsuits and whatever.

So I was very lonely going to my dad every second week and very traumatized, obviously, also because the whole, my home was somewhere else.

And I was at this person, this dad that I've never met with my mother.

And what was the first piece of clothing that you became obsessed with as a child that you felt connected to your identity?

Why, why is the brand doing this at this moment?

Well, obviously, I mean, um, China is a, a partner of us that we really appreciate and love, um, but we never really did something really there.

I mean, we've been growing quite a lot since 2019, but Margiela never really went to, to really connect with, with our Chinese friends.

We also didn't feel like doing a cruise show.

I mean, that's, that's, that's of course very lovely for some other brands, but we, we normally, when we do something, we try to really go deep.

And, uh, so we really decided, okay, this is really, like, worth giving all the attention and, uh, and voilà, the... bring this whole collection there.

Um, also on top of that, I mean, as we are quite young, let's say, in China, we also felt the need a bit of making this bigger, um, 'cause I mean, Maison Margiela has so many things to talk about.

Mm

I mean, what did you take away from that experience?

I mean, it was one of the most beautiful moments of my life, for sure.

I mean, and it's definitely also because I had a very good friend of mine, Gilles Elalouf, which was the founding father, the CEO of the brands.

As a CEO for the majority of this period, and Gilles passed away two years ago from a cancer, which then evolved to the whole story of why projects dissolved.

But the amazing thing of that moment was that Gilles was a CEO, but he had never worked in fashion before.

So he had a Harvard master into business or whatever.

And he had companies which were more focused on informatics and pharmaceutics.

So when you first got there, what did you decide to kind of protect or keep? What did you decide to kind of amplify or emphasize? And what did you decide to abolish and get rid of?