Quotes from Raf Simons

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.

There are people who, if they see something in couture that they perceive as ready-to-wear, they're in shock.

For me, Warhol made so much sense.

My mother was a cleaning lady all her life.

I was growing up in the New Wave period, but that wasn't allowed in school. I remember moments when they wouldn't let four people dressed in black stand together on the playground.

What I've been conscious of, from the beginning is that I can't be Jil Sander.

I see there is a lot of behaviour in men's fashion, which is systematic. It's a lot about all these kind of clothes that can be easily combined with each other, and it's less and less, I think, about making a fashion statement.

Somewhere, in some city in America, someone is wearing my clothes, and I'm happy with that.

Computers let people avoid people, going out to explore. It's so different to just open a website instead of looking at a Picasso in a museum in Paris.

Every weekend, I'm on the highway to Antwerp. I need to be there, to have the calm. It's a whole different life: I jump on my bike, and it's so small, I can be anywhere in a minute. I like to be at home when there's free time because when you're at a big company, you're constantly surrounded by 30 people.

Fashion is so mass-produced now; I hope there will come a refocus on how people see couture. And I would also hope for a new focus on the craft.

You cannot have adoration without being criticized.

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

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.

As an industrial designer, you design the thing by yourself, and then it goes away from you, whereas fashion is in constant relation to the body and to psychology. It makes it more complicated, and it makes it more challenging.

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

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

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.

I like very much to put on fashion shows.

I fantasise about what the future could be in terms of aesthetic and psychology. It's the most difficult thing to do because you have to start from the past - your favourite architect, your favourite song - you take it all with you.

There's a very different kind of psychology going on in the fashion scene than in art. 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 am somebody who focuses on a dialogue between generations - that's the drive of my work. I believe the young generation take the power; they'll take over at one point, but the older generation, they'll push it away only because of the fear. I'm the opposite; I'm curious.

My inspiration is endless; I can't define it. It is a constant flow and evolution. In general, I'm taking it from everywhere. People get nervous when they walk with me, as I'll see something and suddenly have to text it to myself.

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