Raf Simons

“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.”

“Computers let people avoid people, going out to explore. It's so different to just open a website instead of looking at a Picasso in a museum in Paris.”

“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.”

“I couldn't go now to a brand that had a niche attitude like... gothic. I couldn't do that. Well, I could do it, but I wouldn't find it interesting, challenging.”

“In fashion design, you can divide people into two groups. You have people who come with an aesthetic that is there forever, even if it evolves. Then you have people I call 'jumpers.' One season it can be this; the next season it's completely something else. I always knew I am more of a jumper.”

“I know this independence is what people like most about my brand.”

“My dad only ever talked about two things: bicycles and Mercedes.”