Raf Simons Quotes

I dont want to show clothes, I want to show my attitude, my past, present and future. I use memories and future visions and try to place them in todays world.

I'm usually very attracted to things that I can't define. If something's too clear, it's very often not inspiring to me anymore.

The future, for me, is romantic, I don’t understand people who say the past is romantic. Romantic, for me, is something you don’t know yet, something you can dream about, something unknown and mystical. That I find fascinating.

I’m very attracted to things that I can’t define.

The fashion world doesn't know the word stop, so you have to make sure there are sublime moments every day.

In fashion, general people will look to the piece itself. [Some designers] concentrate on, 'How can I make this seam look special?' or 'What am I going to do with that button so it looks interesting?' I am not interested in that. At the moment, I am more interested in the shape and the form. I have a big desire to make clothes without defining them.

Fashion has a long interest in collaborative situations.

If I see a fashion show with literal influences, it doesn't make me think any more. It doesn't make me dream.

When it's only clothes, that is not satisfying enough for me. I don't think I could do this for 10, 20 years if that was all. It also has to be about a psychology or a mentality or a concept.

Fashion is such an octopus. You're connected to so many people: suppliers, pattern makers, production teams, marketing teams, vendors.

I find it fascinating to see the fact that women want to buy things that they see on men.

My aim is a very modern Dior, but at the end of the day, I also look back.

I'm a designer, and for me, things are always evolving, and such evolution is necessary.

I'm not so rock and roll. I'm more techno.

Sometimes it’s more a matter of collaboration which matters in a collection.

Well, my own men's collection always felt very free back in the days before Jil. Once you make it this kind of dialogue with other people, with a fashion show and clients and whatever, it becomes something else. Free meets not so free.

But overall I want to make sure people fall in love with the clothes and that they are satisfied

I'm not an isolated person. The more I connect to people, the more I have the feeling that things work.

Unlike fashion, art isn't applied. It doesn't have to serve anybody. It doesn't have to be there for any other reason than to give an impression of what the world is about.

I know this independence is what people like most about my brand.

I'm very scared sometimes that fashion might attack its own magic by the amount of exposure.

I'm shy, but not on a one-to-one basis. Over the years, I have become acclimatised to a bit of publicity.

My whole life, I've always had to be surrounded by creative things. I find it relaxing to be in touch with creations by other people.

My dad only ever talked about two things: bicycles and Mercedes.

It felt wrong for me to stay totally connected to that very strict way of approaching the heritage - what it can be, what it cannot be. That was also the period where I really thought, "No, let's open it up."

Becoming a fashion designer is agreeing with the fact that what you experience or what you see as free is also connected to a system. Does that mean giving up your freedom? I still don't know the answer. There's a very different kind of psychology going on in the fashion scene than in art.

I don't see Dior as something that could become mine. I see it as a dialogue with the women who wear it. I want to stay connected to them rather than to an abstract brand.

In my opinion, Christian Dior was never, ever theatre.

My mother was a cleaning lady all her life.

I like very much to put on fashion shows.

I never really have to sit at a desk thinking, "What should I do now?" It doesn't work like that for me, and it never has. My thinking process is constant. The difference is that once I was in Antwerp only doing two men's shows a year. And the weird thing is I thought I was busy then.

I've always seen myself as a small entity, and it will always stay like that. I'm not changing. But I think the big challenge for me taking on the Dior thing is to see how I can connect that to such a huge institution.

My ideas for the next collection always happen a couple of months before the show. I have learned to shut up and not bother my assistants with it.

Contemporary art for me is a real driver; it propels us into the future. And at the same time, it's what connects us to the past, from a perspective of artistic evolution in which the succession of eras and styles gives meaning to creation.

For me, Warhol made so much sense.

I wanted an idea of the future, a new femininity. I wanted you to feel that you wouldn't quite know where these women were coming from and where they were going to.

You do what you do. Or you do what you have to do. I don't know how to explain it better. I think that in the moment, you can't see connections, but sometimes afterwards you do.

And even being in the middle of it, at the LVMH group with Dior, there are certain parts of it that I'm just not really in, because it's not in me or my nature. The whole scene around it, the events, the photography ... It's never really been my thing. But I don't take a critical position on people who are very much about that either.

I have so much respect for John [Galliano]s technical skill and the fantasy, its just something that I dont find relevant now, especially when it restricts a woman, because in every other area they have so much freedom.

I think it's different in fashion, because even if I would be an outsider, I would still be in the middle of the whole world of contemporary fashion. But it's interesting to think what outsider fashion could be. Does it mean to be completely disconnected from the regular system or just disconnected style-wise?

Collage – SS13 offers a very controlled and pure do-it-yourself attitude. The collection shows a juxtaposition of very different materials, prints and colours, therefore giving the wearer a possibility to combine the garments in different ways.

I would prefer to use the word free. I think the Dior thing is so much freer. There was not so much free about Jil's way of working.

I see my position in that whole Dior construction very differently from my own brand. My own brand will stand or fall because of me. Dior won't fall if I fall. It will also still stand if I'm not there. I'm coming in there and it's like a - I don't know the English word - like a passage.

My own show with Sterling Ruby, for example, seems like such a huge disconnection from Dior couture, but then I think, yeah, in both collections there was a very strong focus on the human hand and the actual work of people making garments. So in that sense, they were completely related. But I didn't realize that during the process.

I always try to connect with what's happening in the world-reality, modernity, the 21st century, all that - and with Jil it started to feel very disconnected from the outside and how women were looking at fashion, experiencing fashion, interpreting fashion.

The psychology for the person who's actually doing it is completely different. I think I probably needed to put that [hired-hand] psychology in my own head to be able to do the job. Otherwise it would just be too scary. People outside make it much bigger than me. I'm not saying in my head, "Oh, my god, what an amazing idea!" It scares me if I would do that.

When artists connect to a system because they want to make a living, it's their own choice. In fashion, designers don't have that choice. I know everybody mentions Azzedine Alaïa, but he's been going for a long time in the system - showing to people, selling to clients - and I think it's admirable how he's transformed it into his own system in a way, but it's still a system.

The Dior heritage is so broad. It has a strong presence in the work. So, when people have to define it quickly, it's, like, the Bar jacket and the movement and the luxury and the Belle Époque and so much more.

It was a challenge for me to see how I could deal with that at Jil, and I had a lot of doubt about it. I wondered if maybe it was just better to do your own thing in the long run, like an artist.

We are very excited to re-launch the collaboration with Fred Perry. We have great appreciation for the heritage of the brand as well as their dynamism in guiding the brand towards the future. Their openness to create synergies between both our brands will bring interesting, creative results.