Raf Simons
Raf Simons
Raf Simonsis a Belgian fashion designer. Beginning in furniture design, he launched his own menswear label in 1995. In April 2012 he was announced as the creative director at Christian Dior. On October 22, 2015 he resigned from Christian Dior...
NationalityBelgian
ProfessionFashion Designer
Date of Birth12 January 1968
CityNeerpelt, Belgium
CountryBelgium
collaboration matter sometimes
Sometimes it’s more a matter of collaboration which matters in a collection.
rock-and-roll rocks techno
I'm not so rock and roll. I'm more techno.
fashion thinking artist
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.
fall dior english-words
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.
jobs thinking hands
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.
photography people events
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.
strong thinking hands
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.
example gallery shows
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.
fashion art giving-up
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.
thinking way use
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.
fashion men people
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.
evolution designer evolve
I'm a designer, and for me, things are always evolving, and such evolution is necessary.
dad two bicycle
My dad only ever talked about two things: bicycles and Mercedes.
wise fashion mean
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?