I'm preparing my new exposition. My world has been growing outwards for some time, not only a collection but also furniture, interior textiles, the jewellery has been there for a long time, let's say the total world around the woman I created over the last 25 years.

Is that someone apart from you?

I see it as apart from me but it's someone who has my experiences and my way of looking out on the world, like an insect's antennae. It's not me but I want to bring out my experience, I want to communicate with the world through her.

Are you trying to influence the world around you?

Hmm, yes something like that. I just want to bring out my experience and the dreams I have. That's one of the most important things I want to put over, that dream can be reality, when you want it.

What I'm working on now starts with the dream. Then I bring some elements that come out of this creation, which are a part of the world, and a part of me. And then I will bring the real person for the dress, or there will be three dimensions to the work, including the person or the place that I did not create, and whatever they give off. But the dress is totally my thing. And that's what I want to bring - showing as much as possible the trip from the dream to the reality.

The desire to change the way the world looks is something that drives you? Are you a very controlling person?

(considers) Yes, I am. Yes, I am. The most important thing is that when people come in that world they feel surrounded, like an embryo, and totally safe, and they move through this world and something has changed in them. That's the easiest way to explain it. It's a like a story, but they have to bring their own fantasy to the story. I help them to make their own story, in fact. It's a way of leaving reality behind, so as afterwards to have something like a lightness. It's an experience for me too. I try to make it as naive as possible. I don't want to think through big concepts. I've been doing this since I was a little girl.

Are you looking for stimulation or for peace?

Peace. Maybe I'm looking for both, but the end goal is peace. I always say, I want to find some rest. But I'm a person who now has 15 projects, and I cannot say no. I want every moment to do something new. Everything is interesting, to bring it all together, but there is one word: rest.

You've mentioned story several times. Your designs could be illustrations for a children's book. The dresses look like costumes.

That's why for all these years the fashion world hasn't known what to do with me. I studied in Antwerp with Anne De Meulemeester, we know each other very well, but I am always the separate one, because they don't know what to do with me. I don't want to be in the fashion world really.

Do you have a story in your mind when you sit down to design?

My childhood was full of children's film, with many East European films, and we saw many English children's films when we were little. It's a combination of all the nice moments, when I got totally into my fantasy. After a film I would go for a walk, and dream about myself in the film. Everything that I became later began in those nice moments: that's all I can remember from that time. You have to keep the child very close to yourself. That's what I was saying about the embryo, and the enclosed world. I have many paintings that show someone inside something like an egg. That's where it all started and where it continues.

But it's not always delightful, is it? Fairy stories, or what goes on in a child's imagination, it's not always pleasant. Snow White is very beautiful, but the Wicked Queen is also beautiful despite the fact that she's evil. So, is there a darkness that comes out of your work?

There is some darkness but I always want to transform it into beauty. If I can give an example, some years ago I had a collection that was inspired by scars. For me this was one of the strongest collections I ever made because it was so symbolic. You had birth, you had the rest of your life and you had death. And then I tried to make an aesthetic composition. It's the experience of going down and feeling bad, and afterwards when you've been through it you're much stronger. So there always the white and the black. It's something almost therapeutic.

Is the therapy for you? Is there something that you need to work out?

No. When I'm studying it's therapeutic for me, but then I bring it out into the world. I want to hand it on. When people go through it they feel much lighter. So it's like a therapy, but in an aesthetic way.

Read part two of this interview here.