1. Do you have a favourite city to visit?

I love Tokyo. It’s really a city where everything is created with so much sense of detail and so much love. I mean if you come from Narita Airport, there’s a mint green taxi, and if you go to it, boom, the door opens automatically. You step in, there’s lace on the seats, the taxi driver has a cap on and white gloves…And that’s just how you get to the city. It’s really, really good.

2. Your Holiday Collection for Target just launched. What was it like designing this line?

It was great to have the opportunity to reach so many people. That is a great inspiration. I want to do things that reach people. And Christmas is such a feel-good area. It’s nicer to do than to make some kitchen utensils. Having said that, now I’m completely done with Christmas. My studio has been decorated with Christmas prototypes for the last two years.

3. What is your studio working on right now?

We work on 60 or 70 things at once. Right now we’re working on a lot of things for Milan next year with Moooi, Cappellini, Moss and all the others. Then I’m working on a hotel in Hong Kong. A huge, 16-building project in Cairo. A hotel in Amsterdam. I just finished a hotel in Bonn. I’m also making a book on the creative history of Amsterdam.

4. Do you have a favourite product or project that you've designed?

I'm like most mothers. They know what is their favourite child but they will never tell.

5. What’s your favourite colour to work with, then?

I love the colour between orange and red. That moment where you don’t know whether it’s orange or red. Very bright. The way I like it it’s kind of almost moving. It’s like fire. Fire has the tendency to be between red and orange. But I never use it in my designs – I don’t use orange so much in my designs.

6. Are there products that you wish you’d designed?

There are a lot. Regularly I see works of designers and then have to go to my table, take my drawings and cut them apart. Happens to all designers. So that’s a part. And then there are things that – for instance, the toilet brush by Philippe Starck. So simple. So brilliant. But do I wish I had done it? I would have felt very good if I had done it. But it’s his work.

7. If you weren’t a designer, what do you think you’d be doing with your life?

I think I would sell potatoes. I would like that. It’s a very honorable profession. I mean, I could give you an answer for all the other creative things I do but I feel like I could do them tomorrow without changing my profession. To sell potatoes I really feel like that’s a new profession, and I think I’d be pretty good at that.