Quotes from James Jebbia

We were making clothes for that New York skater, who is a picky kind of person with good taste He may look scruffy to the outside world, but he's very sharp in the way he dresses.

A lot of people dismiss what we do. They think, 'Well, it's skate, so it's got to be, like, big baggy pants, cap backwards, big chain'... They don't understand that just because skating is the culture we're working in, it doesn't mean that we can't make good things.

As a small brand, we do it all. We don't need an investor. We would never go anywhere or do anything where we feel it would compromise what we do.

We can have a leather jacket for $1,500, and if it's a good value, young people will understand that. But we also want to have the feeling that this won't be here in a month.

Ralph Lauren... Ralph is somebody that doesn't change with trends and has just kept it up and gotten better and better. That's what we aspire to, without getting boring.

I'm influenced a lot by Chanel and by what Karl Lagerfeld has done.

When we opened in Paris, we opened in the Marais. And when we opened in London, it was in Soho. These aren't, like, edgy places. These are places where people - and young people - hang out.

I've seen a lot of brands fail because they went, 'Hey, look, we're from New York, and that's what we're all about.' But wherever you go, people are proud of where they are. So even though we're from New York, what we do is a mindset: it's got to work in Japan, in Los Angeles, London, wherever.

We were one of the first to say, 'Let's make a really nice shirt for skaters and let's make it really well.' We don't dumb down for somebody young; we are always trying to do something new.

People should know that the idea of legal fakes is a complete farce. It would be sad if a new generation thinks that's actually legit.

I came over here with $100; it was 1983 and I just ended up staying. New York at that time was very inexpensive and it was very easy to get a job. We lived on Staten Island and you could get cheap rent. It was a good time to be in New York.

I know what Stone Island means to a lot of people in England and Europe.

A big shop in Manhattan would feel like we were betraying our roots. And we're not just going to open a bunch of stores.

It really doesn't matter what you've done in the past. We just don't rest on our laurels.