Raf Simons

I see there is a lot of behaviour in men's fashion, which is systematic. It's a lot about all these kind of clothes that can be easily combined with each other, and it's less and less, I think, about making a fashion statement.

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

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

People who don't know me look at my world as something very hard-core, and I don't feel it that way. It's not what attracts me.

I was raised in a very happy nest by very happy people, and I like to think that those are enough ingredients to make me succeed at Dior.

We Belgians love when we can go to L.A. because the city is amazing and the climate is fantastic.

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.

Berlin is in a state of transition. There are lots of people who don't stay here. They pass through. They might not 'clean up,' but they mature. It is a city where people spend a significant time in their lives, and then they move on.

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.

Unlike fashion, art isn't applied. It doesn't have to serve anybody. It doesn't have to be there for any other reason than to give an impression of what the world is about.

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.

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

Fashion is such an octopus. You're connected to so many people: suppliers, pattern makers, production teams, marketing teams, vendors.

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

There are people who, if they see something in couture that they perceive as ready-to-wear, they're in shock.

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 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.

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

Every weekend, I'm on the highway to Antwerp. I need to be there, to have the calm. It's a whole different life: I jump on my bike, and it's so small, I can be anywhere in a minute. I like to be at home when there's free time because when you're at a big company, you're constantly surrounded by 30 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.