"I Feel Like A Mother"

ALBER ELBAZ is a man on a mission.Even whilst speaking at a United Nations summit yesterday in Italy, his mind was on his spring/summer 2010 Lanvin collection, to be presented in Paris next Friday.

"I feel like a mother of 10 kids who are staying in Paris and crying for food," Elbaz told the audience at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization conference."Even here in a time of Internet and machines, not everything can be done by remote control."

Elbaz also spoke about the pressure on designers to produce prolifically - a fact he learned long ago from Yves Saint Laurent, whose label he helmed for three seasons before being replaced by Tom Ford.

"In the music industry, you can have a lifetime career with one great album but we're only as good as our next collection," he told UNESCO's World Forum on Culture and Cultural Industries, WWD reports.

After meeting Saint Laurent on the eve of one of his last couture collections he was surprised to find he was stressed:"I said, 'Even after all these years?'And he said, 'Because of all these years, I'm still stressed.'"

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