Rei Kawakubo Quotes
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Years ago, it was easier to make new things than it is now. The weight of experience weighs heavily, and the expectations; everybody wants to see something they haven't seen before. Now, with social media, with too much information, with the speed of information - all that is making it harder and harder to realize the objective.
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I'd rather [the collection] have no title. Journalists like titles. That's why I give them to you.
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Comme des Garcons is a gift to oneself, not something to appeal or to attract the opposite sex
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Every time before a collection, I say, "I don't want it to come out. I want to cancel it. It's not good. I haven't achieved anything."
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The same spirit runs through everything I do.
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The theme of the collection this time is MONSTER. It's not about the typical Monster you find in sci-fi and video games. The expression of the Monsters I have made has a much deeper meaning. The craziness of humanity, the fear we all have, the feeling of going beyond common sense, the absence of ordinariness, expressed by something extremely big, by something that could be ugly or beautiful. In other words, I wanted to question the established standards of beauty.
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Feeling free inside oneself is being free.
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I don't feel too excited about fashion today People just want cheap fast clothes and are happy to look like everyone else
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My approach is simple. It is nothing other than what I am thinking at the time I make each piece of clothing, whether I think it is strong and beautiful. The result is something that other people decide.
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In Comme des Garçons, I hardly do any sketches; there's no fittings on bodies, there's no models that come in and say, "Oh, a little bit like this." In the beginning, there isn't even a theme. It's like getting the whole world at your feet - to empty your mind of everything that's ever happened before, to get an empty space.
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In terms of creation, I have never thought of suiting any system or abiding by any rules. In this respect I have remained free. The necessity has grown, as we have gotten bigger, to think about commercial aspects of the business more and more, because of the responsibility we have toward our staff and our factories.
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I haven't yet made clothes that I have been totally satisfied with, and maybe I never will.
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Fashion is not art. The aims of fashion and art are different and there is no need to compare them.
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My intention is not to make clothes. My head would be too restricted if I only thought about making clothes.
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I am a clothes maker, and that's all I am. I only want to talk about the making of the clothes. I don't feel the need to go out there and explain that.
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It was also never wanting to be part of any group or movement or anything that was the done thing. I hated organization. When you have a group, you have a leader who is going to put down the rest of the group.
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The idea was not to make a huge business, because the bigger you get, the more restraints I thought I might get. Number one was to do what I set out to do: make new and interesting things within the size of the business that is possible to do without restraints. The second goal was to do the business in order to achieve the first goal. That's what many people don't understand.
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Not only in the creative world but also in the sports world. The most successful achievers in sports are people that are really driven and have that spirit of hunger.
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Beauty is whatever anyone thinks is beautiful.
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For me, I haven't succeeded in any way whatsoever.
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The first thing we do is sit around a table and discuss what we could pick up from daily life, from space. That's how it starts, completely abstract. There's no kind of, "Oh, let's do Peru," or "Let's do pleats," you know?
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My energy comes from freedom and a rebellious spirit.
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Celebrity doesn't really affect the work. What affects the work is the expectations from the outside. This is what no one understands.
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I started with wanting to think about witches, about strong women who have special powers - who are often misunderstood. Then I found some beautiful blue fabric, so I made Blue Witches. My creative process is always like that. Organic, text, theme, subtext, each day evolving and trying to make strong, beautiful clothes. It's that simple.
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I've always said that growing up in postwar Japan, I never felt any connection to my work through those experiences. The work I do really comes from inside myself. For me, being born in Japan was an accident.
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I don't think of myself as anyone special, and I would not know how to define myself.
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I am kind of like the guide, the leader of this discussion. It could be from me, it could be from other people, it could be a mixture. It's a real sort of guild. I lead it and direct it and inspire it.
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What's good about many people liking the work is that when I want to collaborate or am interested in the synergy of artists working together, nobody ever says no to me when I ask to work with them.
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The very, very first thing that I wanted was to make a living - be independent and have a job. It might have come later, that kind of reaction to the boringness of fashion.
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The freedom I give myself for the business is in deciding to take part in the Paris collections, but also having other retail strategies that are unlike anybody else's. Not necessarily going into malls, doing the business my own way - having different brands to cover different concepts, to be able to have the cash flow to carry on.
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