Fashion designer Isabel Marant feels more like an ''athlete than a designer''.

The 47-year-old French fashion designer - who is responsible for the iconic wedge sneaker - has admitted that she sometimes struggles to balance her home and work life because she constantly feels under pressure to design new collections.

When asked how she copes in such a cut-throat industry, Isabel explained: ''I think now to be a designer you have to be the most healthy person - I wake up early and have a half-hour swim every morning to manage the stress. If you don't go to bed early, with all those collections we have to provide all the time ... really, it's a race. I feel like a high­ performance athlete more than a designer.''

Referring to the formerly disgraced designer John Galliano's return to fashion, by way of the design house Maison Martin Margiela, after he was suspended by Christian Dior in 2011 for allegedly making anti-Semitic remarks during an argument, Isabel told New York magazine: ''You have to be very strong to survive. I have a family - I think that helps a lot. You can be so lonely. You get very huge with celebrity, but it's nothing after that. There's a lot of fakeness, and it can leave you alone very easily.''