French designer Nicolas Ghesquiere has learnt to be "brave" in fashion.
The 42-year-old took over as creative director at Louis Vuitton last year, as the successor of Marc Jacobs.
His first collection with the luxury fashion house debuted at Paris Fashion Week earlier in March, and was met with praise and adulation.
Talking for the first time since his appointment at Louis Vuitton, the celebrated designer says he has learnt many lessons in fashion, most notably to be courageous in your decisions.
"I learned to not be scared. To be brave. In this work you have to convince everyone all the time, at different levels, to support your dream. I learned you have to be confident in order to do that," he told Vanity Fair's April issue.
"Never forget that what becomes timeless was once truly new."
Nicolas' meteoric rise in the fashion world was something the designer thinks he was "chosen" for.
At a young age he made deals with himself that he'd work with great designers before he reached his 20s.
"I promised myself, 'before your 18th birthday you're going to be at Jean Paul Gaultier', and it worked. I was hired," he remembered.
From there he worked for himself, becoming a freelancer much to the annoyance of his parents who wanted him to study fashion properly.
He went on to lead Balenciaga, where he stayed for 15 years until 2012, during which time the brand became a critically acclaimed fashion house.
His appointment at Louis Vuitton surprised some in the fashion world, but Vuitton's CEO Michael Burke says it was an easy choice.
"There was only Nicolas. We are under an obligation of maintaining a standard of boldness after the brilliant job that Marc Jacobs did," Burke said.
"We had to have somebody as great as Nicolas. We couldn't go into it saying `we're going to play it safe'."
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