Follow the Rules: By A.P.C. designer Jean Touitou

1.
We’re not living in a very creative era. That’s not good or bad; it’s just the way it is. I think it’s in very bad taste to buy art right now. People should leave it to the hedge-fund owners who want to satisfy their wives. “Hey, I bought a Chinese avant-garde thing.” Good for you.

2.
I think it’s very important to look sexy at home. I hate it when people say, “I will take this to the countryside because it’s not fashionable anymore.” I love being well-dressed when nobody’s looking at me.

3.
At hotels, they always mess up the cleaning. They will do a crease when it’s not necessary. You give them a cotton shirt and they dry-clean it. It smells funny, so you have to rinse it again. So I travel light.

4.
If you can tell a man’s sexuality by the way he dresses—like a “gay” uniform or a “macho” uniform—that’s disgusting.

5.
Nowadays, people work out way too much, and they look like invaders from another planet. A guy who works out two hours a day—focusing on his chest because he thinks it’s sexy—you can’t dress him, even if you send him to the best designer or stylist in the world.

6.
Finance men have money but no taste. They’ll say, “My wife thinks this tie looks good on me.” They don’t focus on what’s beautiful and what’s not beautiful—they leave it to women.

7.
The rock star who uses a personal stylist to dress him should go to jail. If you’re doing rock and roll, you should know how to dress. You shouldn’t need to hire anybody.

8.
Anybody can be a good guest for dinner. When it gets delicate is after one day. The worst guests are the people who come to your place and in the morning they say, “Okay, what do we do today?”

9.
I once wore a pink, ruffled shirt for dinner, and I wish I had never done it. I thought it was funny, but I felt so bad in it I realized I don’t have the humor to deal with ugliness.

10.
After you’re 35, it’s difficult to drink unless you’re running 10 miles a day. I’m not talking one dry martini every Saturday or something. I’m talking three dry martinis a night. And I don’t think that’s possible—it’s too much poisoning. It’s not a very sexy way to talk about drinking, but that’s the truth.