Earlier this month, Louis Vuitton revealed the surprise star of its SS16 ‘Series 4’ campaign: Lightning, the character and protagonist of role-playing video game Final Fantasy XIII. Despite being, well, fictional, The Telegraph managed to secure an interview with the Blazefire Saber-wielding Cocoon-native. Speaking to Olivia Lidbury, Lightning breaks her silence on the campaign, belonging to the ‘fashion family’ and what she thinks about Louis Vuitton’s artistic director of women’s collections Nicolas Ghesquière.

“Though his style was new to me, the moment I laid eyes on his collection, it was as if I was hit by a bolt of lightning,” she says on Ghesquière and his SS16 collection for Louis Vuitton. “(It) fills me with a sense of serenity and pride. All this time, I thought the only style that suited me was one that mirrored who I was: strong and tough. But I was wrong.” She goes on to testify to the transformative power of clothes. “(Ghesquière) changed the way I see myself. Perhaps I’m finally learning who I truly am.”

And the feeling is reciprocated. Speaking on Lightning shortly after the launch of the campaign, Ghesquière described the video game character as “the perfect avatar for a global, heroic woman and for a world where social networks and communications are now seamlessly woven into our life.”

Prior to this campaign, Lightning says that her relationship with fashion was more of a functional one; she used to see clothes as “nothing more than armor to stay alive”. Working with Ghesquière, has changed this – as you might expect. “Fashion isn’t something you’re taught or given, it comes from your own taste and your own choices,” she muses. “It displays the essence of who you are to the people around you.” 

Read the full interview here.

Watch Lightning x Louis Vuitton below: