I came to fashion by proxy: my husband owned a fantastic shop called Laura, on the Left Bank in Paris. It was the beginning of prêt-à-porter and he sold interesting clothes, luxurious fabrics and other bits and bobs that women like to spend their money on.

As a young woman, I was interested only in getting pregnant. But one day, I began to think about clothes. I asked the Italian man who made jumpers for my husband’s shop to design and make a sweater for me. It was so figure-hugging and fashionable that it ended up on the front cover of Elle magazine. I became the Queen of knitwear overnight. It was 1968 and I knew nothing about knitting. I opened a clothes shop that year, but I wasn’t serious.

Some days I would close the door and tell customers to leave me alone. Other times I was friendlier: Karl Lagerfeld showed his collection in my shop in 1970. I’ve always been interested in how to work with colour. Electric blue and fuchsia pink are real favourites and seem to pop up in most of my collection — the bolder the better. I mix these startling colours with black, white and beige. I like interesting contrasts.

What is the point of conforming? I break all the rules. When everyone else was wearing modest clothes, mine were very tight and brightly coloured. I like to spell out provocative sayings and words on my jumpers. I get inspiration from the street, from art, from anywhere really.

The Seine divides Paris culturally just as it does geographically. People on the Left Bank are different. Here, people pay attention to things that most people aren’t interested in — I like that. Even their dress sense is different, more offbeat, more me. This is where I feel at home.

I met Andy Warhol in New York in 1986. He was at my show and asked me to come to his factory so he could paint me. The following day, he sat me down and told me to pull down my sweater at the front to make it sexier. Then he asked me to move it down a little more and a little more, until I said: “OK, I’ll take it off.”

I sat like that for five hours. I was totally disappointed when I saw the painting — it didn’t look like me at all. But now I love it. He understood me from the inside. Karl Lagerfeld also drew me, it took him about 15 minutes and it is fantastic. He only drew about two or three lines but it is exactly who I am.

The first thing Malcolm McLaren asked me was “Why don’t you sing?” and I didn’t really have an answer. That evening we met around a piano with two musicians and I sang a poem I had just penned. I sang all night about dresses and flower girls.

I have written several erotic novels. My books are about life, state of mind, the soul and women. It is important for me as a fashion designer to work in other areas; it gives me inspiration. I couldn’t have created just clothes for 40 years. The clothes that I design today are exactly the same as and completely different from those I created in the Seventies — they stem from the same ideas. The world has changed and so have I, but I still put the same political, ecological and ethical views into my fabrics.

I don’t know if I’m perceived as being provocative. I suppose it’s an attitude that I’ve had since Day 1. I am not swayed by anybody else. Who cares what they think?

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