Rick Owens

“I really learned not to think about what other people like. The other thing I've learned recently is not to look at sales reports.”

“I think spontaneity may be overrated.”

“Style isn't everything.”

“I love the idea of completely collapsing into sensuality, but I'm just too pragmatic.”

“I've always been very skeptical about the collab situation. Under the worst circumstances, it's an obvious marketing gimmick.”

“It takes a certain amount of strength of character to decide you're not satisfied with something and then change it and to change it flamboyantly and ferociously and spectacularly. That just really impressed me.”

“There are people that like contemporary art and people that like old art, and I like old art.”

“Margiela was the perfect example of an anti-status status. He had more status than status. You were saying, 'I'm above status,' when you wore Margiela, which is just another form of status. Even in an atmosphere of humility and responsibility, those who show it will be the most humble of all.”

“I always choke at calling fashion art. But as the fashion world gets more saturated and competitive, to stand out, you have to go to another level, a level that presses a lot of the same buttons that art does.”

“I wanted to be an artist, but I wasn't really confident in my intellectual stamina for it. I was more intimidated by it, and so fashion was kind of the next best thing. It was easier.”

“At a certain point in his life, when he reaches a level of stature, a man commissions his portrait to go over the fireplace. It's a classical tradition, but I thought I'd do it in wax because that's funnier. It's my Dorian Gray moment.”

“Designing stores is one of the most satisfying aspects of what I do.”

“Clothes are status signifiers, and no matter how restrained, they always give you subtle symbols of what your values are.”

“A lot of my life is just thinking logically how to get from point A to point B in the straightest line.”

“I'm not one of the pessimists who thinks that we're going to destroy the planet. I feel like it's going to evolve into something else, and I think it would be arrogant of us to think that we have that power.”

“I am always going to be beating myself up and then forgiving myself afterwards for beating myself up, and then getting on myself for letting myself beat myself up... I'm very busy. Very, very busy.”

“Fashion will always be 80 percent status. There are going to be different ways of expressing status - intellectual status, financial status.”

“The reading I did do that stuck with me was usually somewhat breathless and brittle - I suppose camp. But my definition of camp has always been authentic sentiment disguised in artifice.”

“My father was so interested in self-awareness and learning. As he got older, though, he just became more frustrated and more bitter and the opposite of serene.”

“My designs might be considered bold but the foundation is one of benevolence.”