Raf Simons

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“One of the first things I picked up when I was very, very young out of a record store was work from Peter Saville - the early things he used to do for Factory Records.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Dress codes and gestures and attitudes have always inspired me, as has youth culture in general, although now I question it more. If you analyze youth cultures over history, there has always been something strict about them - you have to be like this or like that.”

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

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

“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.”

“Until I was eighteen, I did not know that you could study fashion design or art. I really didn't know. I already had my nose in the art world; I was already looking at things, but I didn't really get it that you could study that because my school was a very different environment.”

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

“My mother was a cleaning lady all her life.”

“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.”

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

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