It was when Keira Knightley appeared at the film festival in Venice wearing my dress. I did not expect it. My work was not so popular and it was not yet widely spread to reach events on the red carpet. At that time, prints were a taboo. When I saw the dress on the red carpet, I knew that my work had the power to influence people and that prints could once again become fashionable. I thought, "It fits Keira Knightley well, it suits her very well and it will certainly make people look at prints differently."
The inspirations for each season
Sometimes there is consistency, sometimes I need to make something completely different. Sometimes 
I have said that I would no longer focus on objects. I went through the sewing machine, the book, the pencil, the chandeliers. It's never enough. For example, I had infinite inspiration. The next season I had the idea of focussing on objects of art. They were quite ornamental, they had an Asian tang and could be perceived more as symbols than as mere objects.
Next season
We will stay away from the idea of objects or something that can be associated with them. Continuity in my work as a designer is important, but I do not want to start repeating myself.
Spring 2013
Banknotes (drachmas) and stamps in the prints of the latest collection are not a socio-political 
message. I wanted to create something that would theoretically reflect world history.
I started thinking what could make you go around the world in all its parts and tried to express it in a print. And there was the idea of stamps as the main print of the collection. Then, I decided that stamps were not enough. I wanted to add other elements to my message. Another symbolic element of globalization is banknotes.
I wanted women to feel more relaxed with this collection. There are no corsets to tighten the waist. The models are much more fashionable and the lines are much looser. We also have suits because we relied mainly on dresses in the previous collections but women do not wear only dresses.
Haute couture and ready-to-wear shops
It was a big decision to launch part of our collection of the previous season in Topshop. It was taken quite deliberately. Shops and small commercial brands (high street) began to clearly imitate the models. Poor imitations began appearing everywhere. People who had bought an imitation of my clothes were thinking that they were wearing the original brand and even sent me pictures of them. Then I realized that if I could influence main fashion trends so much that they imitated me, it would be better to control this process more - to define myself how the mass production would operate and how the models would be tailored. So, we launched a simpler collection that was an everyday version of my collection from last year. The structure of the clothes is simpler in these collections.
I had a serious dispute with my boyfriend about this decision. According to him, my clothes in Topshop are like photocopies of works of art. I cannot agree with this view. The way the market is operating currently makes the imitations inevitable. If we cannot eliminate them, then it is better to make the collections more accessible, so that the public is able to access them. These types of collections appear on the shelves one season later, but they have the designer's name on them, which is a guarantee of quality.
Travelling
Travelling around different countries and learning about different cultures make you rich. I cannot do it often, but it is very inspiring when it happens - not directly for my work, but it helps change my way of thinking, it opens the mind and has its impact.
Greece
The Greek in me has helped me greatly to overcome the obstacles in front of me. It is the way we were bred, the idea that we can cope with many more things. It is not necessary to have a close specialization. All this helps.
The crisis
In terms of creativity, I think that the crisis only increases the need inside you to improve your work or art. As for fashion, I think that if you come from Greece it is difficult to step into the global market. You must first be established in the local market very well before you start expanding to foreign markets. If you are a young designer, it is not easy to become quickly recognizable because of the lack of access to a wide global audience.
... after 10 years
I hope that I will still be doing what I love doing, I will have more to give in the field in which I am now developing. I would find it very sad if it proved after 10 years that I had nothing new to present in fashion and that I had to make a dramatic change in my career.
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