I didn't want to create a makeup line for one ethnic group; it had to be multi-ethnic. To me, beauty is beauty. It doesn't matter to me what colour the skin is.

The '80s and '90s were the greatest time to be a makeup artist.

I love to collaborate with artists, like Guy Bourdin and Steven Klein, who don't have any boundaries.

Having worked with so many of the geniuses, I'd learned so much. It's the best sort of photography school, to work with people like Penn or Avedon or Meisel.

Working on fashion shows, you work with the designer and try to read his brain - what was in the creative process, what images did he have in his head?

I photographed Alek Wek. She was amazing, and nobody knew about her then. It was a really strong photograph of her.

I love so much the models from the '60s and the '70s. They were extremely professional, great models who knew how to work the camera so well and loved fashion and had a great sense of style.

Looking at flowers, simple things in life. I don't need to look at gold and a castle; sometimes its very simple things that are very beautiful. I am keeping my eyes fresh to find beauty in many places, and in gold, too, sometimes!

Makeup can make a woman look more beautiful at every age.

I have always been attracted to faces that are different.

It's one thing to read about how makeup is applied. It's another thing altogether to watch it being put on.

My vision was to create makeup that was more transparent but with formulas that last. I follow my instincts - it's all very spontaneous!

Being a studio make-up artist and working on magazines was the only thing I wanted to do.

In a lot of cases, makeup is a fantastic help, and that's why women love makeup in general. It's a fantastic way to help somebody look great. It's not the only way, of course, but it's a major accessory, along with hair, clothes, lighting, all those things.

I've seen makeup destroy people and make them look bad if it's badly done.

I love the dramatic idea of having nothing on.

I'm not an easily depressed person.

I loved working with Avedon.

Women are very unpredictable.

I think Edie Sedgwick comes back, too. Every five or six years, there is always something about Edie, because she was so modern and stylish and elegant and hippie-ish, all at the same time. So I think that people will always love her.

I was spoiled growing up in the 1970s because magazines were publishing the photographs of Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin without compromise. You really felt that sense of freedom through their images.

I think there was a freedom in the 1920s and 1930s: a certain liberty and evolution of women.

I'm very nostalgic - and I don't care.

I fell in love with New York. I moved here 25 years ago in 1984 after I lived in Paris for six years. In the 1980s, it was the place to be. Here I was able to create NARS, which I would not have been able to create if I stayed in France.