Top 33 Raf Simons Quotes

I find it fascinating to see the fact that women want to buy things that they see on men.

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

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

If I see a fashion show with literal influences, it doesn’t make me think any more. It doesn’t make me dream.

I was growing up in the New Wave period, but that wasn’t allowed in school. I remember moments when they wouldn’t let four people dressed in black stand together on the playground.

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.

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

My point of view is that if I love a certain kind of beauty, I want more of that beauty. I don’t need 200 different beauties.

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

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.

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

In the nineties, it was common to see people who expressed themselves through one designer – the Jil Sander woman, the Martin Margiela woman. You saw her on the street, and you knew who she was.

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

For me, Warhol made so much sense.

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.

My inspiration is endless; I can’t define it. It is a constant flow and evolution. In general, I’m taking it from everywhere. People get nervous when they walk with me, as I’ll see something and suddenly have to text it to myself.

I want to get away from couture just being done for a picture or for a single moment on the red carpet. I want to try and convince women that couture can be worn in the day and that there’s a reality and relevance there, because that’s what Mr. Christian Dior wanted.

I am somebody who focuses on a dialogue between generations – that’s the drive of my work. I believe the young generation take the power; they’ll take over at one point, but the older generation, they’ll push it away only because of the fear. I’m the opposite; I’m curious.

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.

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

The Chanel woman? I don’t even need to see; I smell her from round the corner.

Fashion has a long interest in collaborative situations.

You cannot have adoration without being criticized.

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 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.

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.

You can instantly spot a Chanel woman, so I want to develop the Dior woman.

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.

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.

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.

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 like very much to put on fashion shows.

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.