Quotes from Raf Simons

L.A. interests me, the whole band scene and relaxed carefree feel, but it does not mean you have to dress like a hippy.

I want to get away from couture just being done for a picture or for a single moment on the red carpet. I want to try and convince women that couture can be worn in the day and that there's a reality and relevance there, because that's what Mr. Christian Dior wanted.

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

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.

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

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

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.

I don't have so many things in the fashion world that interest me. It's probably because I am so deeply into it. Often when you go very deep into something, you also discover what it's about, and you understand it better. With the art world, I still have a lot of curiosity.

Berlin is in a state of transition. There are lots of people who don't stay here. They pass through. They might not 'clean up,' but they mature. It is a city where people spend a significant time in their lives, and then they move on.

Fashion has a long interest in collaborative situations.

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

Antwerp literally was a trash hole, but fashion changed that. The designers there were extreme, and their work was hard to understand. But now, people from all over the world come to Antwerp to shop.

The Chanel woman? I don't even need to see; I smell her from round the corner.

I am always attracted to the moments when a person who is associated with a certain message, image or sensibility evolves. I am very interested in how audiences respond to that maturation and absorb the evolution.

In fashion design, you can divide people into two groups. You have people who come with an aesthetic that is there forever, even if it evolves. Then you have people I call 'jumpers.' One season it can be this; the next season it's completely something else. I always knew I am more of a jumper.

I'm fascinated by the way Diane Arbus saw things. She came from this fashion background and then twisted it.

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

We all know and we all perceive Christian Dior in a very specific way.

I'd like to see fashion slow down a bit. What freaks me out about fashion today is the speed - the speed of consuming, the speed of ideas. When fashion moves so fast, it takes away something I always loved, which is the idea that fashion should be slightly elusive. Hard to grasp, hard to find.

You can instantly spot a Chanel woman, so I want to develop the Dior woman.

Our society wants things to grow, and our society wants things to become bigger and bigger. Everything has to be put under the spotlight.

I couldn't go now to a brand that had a niche attitude like... gothic. I couldn't do that. Well, I could do it, but I wouldn't find it interesting, challenging.

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.

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.