The new issue of Flaunt hits newsstands Monday, and while most copies will be covered with Kristen Stewart, a smaller run will feature Stephanie Seymour

Inside, Long Nguyen interviews Azzedine Alaïa in his studio in Paris. The designer cooks and talks about his childhood, École des Beaux-arts and his time with Guy Laroche.

He says of fashion today, “There’s a fatigue in fashion, i think. Designer fashion is different now. Designers cannot create so many collections—cruise and pre-fall, accessories—when normally two-a-year is more than sufficient. A designer simply cannot invent something new every two months or so. It takes six months of research and work to build a new silhouette. i work until very late every morning since i do many things by myself. Personally, i know it’s not possible. That’s the reason why fashion today does not change very much. There is no time to think, to invent something new. You can no longer be excited or surprised. Rarely is there any freshness.”

He collects vintage, mostly Vionnet, Balenciaga, Paul Poiret, and Schiaparelli, but also Comme des Garçons, Margiela and Junya Watanabe and he says that if he had the time, he’d love to design a collection for H&M. Gilles Bensimon’s portraits of Stephanie Seymour after the jump.