Latest Raf Simons Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Both costume and fashion are about telling a story, except that in a ballet the story has already been written by the composer or the librettist.

  Raf Simons

  Fashion, Ballet, Composer

  Source: www.harpersbazaar.com

• Contemporary art for me is a real driver; it propels us into the future. And at the same time, it's what connects us to the past, from a perspective of artistic evolution in which the succession of eras and styles gives meaning to creation.

  Raf Simons

  Art, Real, Past

  Source: www.harpersbazaar.com

• Camouflage is about much more than concealment and going unnoticed. There's a whole game involved between revealing and hiding.

  Raf Simons

  Hiding, Unnoticed

  Source: www.harpersbazaar.com

• The psychology for the person who's actually doing it is completely different. I think I probably needed to put that [hired-hand] psychology in my own head to be able to do the job. Otherwise it would just be too scary. People outside make it much bigger than me. I'm not saying in my head, "Oh, my god, what an amazing idea!" It scares me if I would do that.

  Raf Simons

  Jobs, Thinking, Hands

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I see my position in that whole Dior construction very differently from my own brand. 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.

  Raf Simons

  Fall, English Words, Dior

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• When it's only clothes, that is not satisfying enough for me. I don't think I could do this for 10, 20 years if that was all. It also has to be about a psychology or a mentality or a concept.

  Raf Simons

  Thinking, Years, Clothes

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I've always seen myself as a small entity, and it will always stay like that. I'm not changing. But I think the big challenge for me taking on the Dior thing is to see how I can connect that to such a huge institution.

  Raf Simons

  Thinking, Challenges, Dior

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I think it's different in fashion, because even if I would be an outsider, I would still be in the middle of the whole world of contemporary fashion. But it's interesting to think what outsider fashion could be. Does it mean to be completely disconnected from the regular system or just disconnected style-wise?

  Raf Simons

  Wise, Fashion, Mean

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Robert Gober, for example. He doesn't seem like somebody who is just going to show in a gallery that asks him to show. He's just making his work, and when he's ready, he's going to show it.

  Raf Simons

  Example, Gallery, Shows

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• And even being in the middle of it, at the LVMH group with Dior, there are certain parts of it that I'm just not really in, because it's not in me or my nature. The whole scene around it, the events, the photography ... It's never really been my thing. But I don't take a critical position on people who are very much about that either.

  Raf Simons

  Photography, People, Groups

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Becoming a fashion designer is agreeing with the fact that what you experience or what you see as free is also connected to a system. Does that mean giving up your freedom? I still don't know the answer. There's a very different kind of psychology going on in the fashion scene than in art.

  Raf Simons

  Fashion, Art, Giving Up

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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. I know everybody mentions Azzedine Alaïa, but he's been going for a long time in the system - showing to people, selling to clients - and I think it's admirable how he's transformed it into his own system in a way, but it's still a system.

  Raf Simons

  Fashion, Artist, Thinking

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• It was a challenge for me to see how I could deal with that at Jil, and I had a lot of doubt about it. I wondered if maybe it was just better to do your own thing in the long run, like an artist.

  Raf Simons

  Running, Artist, Long

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I would prefer to use the word free. I think the Dior thing is so much freer. There was not so much free about Jil's way of working.

  Raf Simons

  Thinking, Use, Dior

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Well, my own men's collection always felt very free back in the days before Jil. Once you make it this kind of dialogue with other people, with a fashion show and clients and whatever, it becomes something else. Free meets not so free.

  Raf Simons

  Fashion, Men, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• It felt wrong for me to stay totally connected to that very strict way of approaching the heritage - what it can be, what it cannot be. That was also the period where I really thought, "No, let's open it up."

  Raf Simons

  Heritage, Way, Periods

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• The Dior heritage is so broad. It has a strong presence in the work. So, when people have to define it quickly, it's, like, the Bar jacket and the movement and the luxury and the Belle Époque and so much more.

  Raf Simons

  Strong, Luxury, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I always try to connect with what's happening in the world-reality, modernity, the 21st century, all that - and with Jil it started to feel very disconnected from the outside and how women were looking at fashion, experiencing fashion, interpreting fashion.

  Raf Simons

  Fashion, Reality, Trying

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I don't find it difficult anymore, because these days, Raf is only men and Dior is only women. I found it much more complicated when I was doing Jil Sander for men and women. It wasn't that it was the same, but I'm specific about where I want to go, and when you suddenly have to do two men's collections in the same moment, that was more difficult.

  Raf Simons

  Men, Two, Raf

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I never really have to sit at a desk thinking, "What should I do now?" It doesn't work like that for me, and it never has. My thinking process is constant. The difference is that once I was in Antwerp only doing two men's shows a year. And the weird thing is I thought I was busy then.

  Raf Simons

  Thinking, Men, Years

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• My own show with Sterling Ruby, for example, seems like such a huge disconnection from Dior couture, but then I think, yeah, in both collections there was a very strong focus on the human hand and the actual work of people making garments. So in that sense, they were completely related. But I didn't realize that during the process.

  Raf Simons

  Strong, Thinking, Hands

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• You do what you do. Or you do what you have to do. I don't know how to explain it better. I think that in the moment, you can't see connections, but sometimes afterwards you do.

  Raf Simons

  Thinking, Connections, Sometimes

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com