John Varvatos

“Music has always been a dominant force in my life. As a young kid, it was a way for me to escape everyday life.”

“I wasn't into pop music, even at a really young age.”

“The thing about the basics is they don't really change - it's the details and the proportions that change. The shirt may be cut slimmer or looser, the suit might be darker or lighter, the sneakers might not have laces, but you're still talking about shirts and suits and sneakers.”

“People will always have their opinions; I've come to learn whose matter.”

“Music and fashion have had a kind of incestuous relationship since the Fifties. It started with people like Elvis Presley and pop icons like James Dean. Then it exploded in the MTV days. Now, with the Internet, it's instantaneous.”

“The music alone wasn't enough. It was great, but when an artist had an amazing look - like the MC5, or the Stooges, or Alice Cooper - you really got sucked in. The wardrobe was so important. At a show, you were engrossed in the music, but you were also engrossed in everything from the haircuts to what they were wearing.”

“My passion in life, besides my family, was always music. From the time I was a kid, I was obsessed. I'm like the ultimate fan.”

“Success is a funny thing. It means different things to different people. For me, I am always pleased when people connect to our brand. It means we are executing in a manner that speaks to a wide variety of businesses.”

“I shop a lot online... and just the ease of it makes a lot more sense.”

“The great thing about living in New York is the constant change of things. It inspires me to keep moving, push forward, question ideas.”

“When I started working in fashion, I didn't have money to buy photographs, so I'd Xerox pictures from magazines and put them in notebooks. When I'd start a collection, I'd sit with my old notebooks and look through them for inspiration.”

“I loved the MC5 and the Stooges, but also, the British Invasion - the Kinks and the Yardbirds - and then Led Zeppelin, of course. Alice Cooper was one of my favorite bands.”

“My vision is the ability to design clothes for a man who wants to create his own style and doesn't want to dress like he's in uniform, to look like the guy in the ad, or to feel like he has to put it together that way.”

“A part of my kind of design and inspiration ethos is that I carry around a leather notebook and I sketch in it, doodle in it, write notes in it, and I put pictures in it.”

“I never wanted to be the face of the brand. You haven't seen me in my own ads. You don't see my logo all over my clothes. From the beginning, I wanted the clothes to stand on their own.”

“In the early '70s, coming out of the '60s, it was very hippy or it was very uniform, like The Beatles all wearing the same suit. Into the '70s, it became much more about a personal style. You had the glam period, which was a lot of fun, and then you went into punk.”

“I collect vintage vinyl records.”

“Canada - they won't like me saying this, but it's really like it's a part of Michigan, that area.”

“A lot of designers become hot, attend every party, and then you don't hear about them again.”

“There's rock n' roll in hip-hop, there's rock n' roll in pop music, there's rock n' roll in soul, there's rock n' roll in country. When you see people dress, and their style has an edge to it, that rebellious edge that bubbles up in every genre, that's rock n' roll. Everybody still wants to be a rock star, you know?”