Belgian designer Cédric Charlier is about to celebrate two milestones in his life, the 5th anniversary of his brand and his 40th birthday. Both dates have kind of snuck up on him. This is because he is a designer who is so incredibly focused on the work.

In fact, this has always been the case with Cedric, who studied at the famous La Cambre fashion school in Belgium and worked on the design teams at Celine during the reign of Michael Kors and perfected his craft alongside Alber Elbaz during his Lanvin years. From there he became the artistic director of Cacharel before the Italian fashion giant Aeffe came knocking at his door making him the dream offer to back the launch of his own signature brand.

Since then Cedric has built up a name for himself not only for his beautifully cut garments in attractive graphic designs that made real world clothing look and feel special, but also the way in which he approaches the fashion system itself. He presents his menswear and womenswear together, and has made the conscious decision to only product two collections a year…instead of the endless slog of pre-collections, runway collections, capsule, cruise or resort collections that have filled up every waking hour of most modern designers’ lives.

Instead he takes the time to be inspired, find interesting partnerships to build creative collaborations with, like his new t-shirt collaboration with Fruit of the Loom, and his choice shows his clothing in a presentation format so that buyers and journalists can have an up close and personal interaction with his work all underline that Cedric has his own elegantly understated approach to the business of fashion.

I caught up with Cedric as his favorite French bistro to talk about his career, the choices he has made and why being a fashion designer might not be a lifelong pursuit.