Marcel Wanders

“I am quite familiar with Dubai and its design scene. I have been a regular visitor for more than 10 years. It is hard to name an area where hospitality, friendship, culture, ambition, and beauty are so highly regarded.”

“Amsterdam is a breeding ground for new creative pursuits in many areas fueled by a tolerance and openness to ideas unlike any world city I've been to. There is something for everyone here, especially when you dare to go off the beaten path.”

“To me, relaxing doesn't mean that we play ding-dong songs and look at a wall of bamboo. It's just completely unoriginal.”

“Opulence doesn't cost more than boring.”

“The works we do in Moooi are very diverse, very eclectic. That's how we like it.”

“To transfer food into a bowl from a pan that you've just cooked in, it's a loss of energy; it's wasteful. People think it's very sophisticated, I don't think it's so smart.”

“I have 60 people working for me in my studio. That's luxury if you ask me. I just dream. Tell those people that I want a certain thing. Those people will then invest days, and sometimes months, in bringing that idea to life. What more could you ask for? That's luxury for me.”

“I have been a designer all my life, and design, for me, is to share love and trust and show the future in a beautiful way. I have worked on this principle all my life.”

“I'm not the type of person who feels bad about things before. I choose what to do at the moment, and I have a very good reason for it; otherwise, I don't do it. If later my feelings change, I should celebrate now by being more wise, not feel bad about before.”

“I really feel that design has the capacity to communicate, and I really have concentrated on the communication of positive values.”

“There are many design companies, but there are few designers who organize their own business and open it up to other designers.”

“I wanted to go beyond the sentiments and needs of daily life to create a sense of wonder and find a new space for design.”

“Some people have a concept of design: that it should be without the maker. I have been educated in this way, the traditional way. But I am not naive. I know that we make my things, and that people want them. I am signing them - and I am winking at them.”

“A good gift celebrates the relationship between the giver and the receiver. When you open that box, you feel like, 'Wow, you really understood me.' At the same time, you think this gift could come only from that person.”

“I like to find areas where design has not yet gone.”

“Nothing grows old faster than the new.”

“By training, I'm an engineer, but I don't tell anyone because it bores people.”

“As humans, we are not so rationalist as we think we are. I think our biggest quality is indeed that we are human, truly human: if our biggest quality would be rationality, we would lose our soul.”

“I can't be boring. If people like my designs, then meet me and find out that I'm boring, they won't want my stuff.”

“I think what makes me different is that... I am comfortable with expressing my vulnerability. I think designers often want to just put the loveable ideas out there. Ones that are imaginative but not very introspective. It is more rare for a designer to explore his or her disappointments and moments of disillusion and doubt.”