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.
The more people that are afraid when they see new creation, the happier I am. I think the media has some responsibility to bear for people becoming more conservative. Many parts of the media have created the situation where uninteresting fashion can thrive.
I haven't yet made clothes that I have been totally satisfied with, and maybe I never will.
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.
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.
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.
I don't think of myself as anyone special, and I would not know how to define myself.
The same spirit runs through everything I do.
I identified very much with punk, not only in the fashion sector, but in every other sector. The very nature of doing something new and free meant something that was against authority.
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.
Celebrity doesn't really affect the work. What affects the work is the expectations from the outside. This is what no one understands.
There's always a pattern in order to make a thing, but the starting point must be something I've never seen before. It's not two-dimensional, but it's like a sample. I work with patterns like a sculptor. I try to get [the team] not to work on a body, [but] to work on a free space, on a table. The work is basically on flat surfaces.
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.
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.
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.
I'd rather [the collection] have no title. Journalists like titles. That's why I give them to you.
For me, I haven't succeeded in any way whatsoever.
I can't become naked for everybody. It's never going to be possible for the person to write the whole story completely, so I find bits of myself, bits of what I think in some articles. And I don't give lip service to journalists. I never make them feel comfortable. I say, "It's your job to make the story."
It would have more meaning for me to hear what critics have to say if their values and their ways of living were deeper and more serious.
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.
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.
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.
I always just wanted to have enough to carry on. I never had ambitions to take over the world or be a global enterprise. But I wanted to have a strong business in order to do the main objective.
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.
Most of the things I read from journalists are, you know, a little bit simplified and easy.
