I'm not a DJ, I'm not a scenester.
We don't want people to think of Supreme as this hard-to-get, exclusive brand. We're a brand of the people.
Supreme wasn't meant to be a brand... It's a good name, but it's a difficult one to trademark.
For us, the reason that our quality has been high, and I feel that our pricing has been reasonable, is because we don't wholesale.
I feel a very important factor to our longevity is that, over the years, we have managed to create our own unique identity and aesthetics.
We were one of the first to say, 'Let's make a really nice shirt for skaters and let's make it really well.' We don't dumb down for somebody young; we are always trying to do something new.
I think the reason that we do things the way we do is because we respect the customer. And I don't look at what we do as anything less than any other brand.
I much prefer if someone buys something from us that they plan on wearing it and not selling.
We just want to make really great-looking clothes that are well-made, fit well... that you can skate in.
When we opened in Paris, we opened in the Marais. And when we opened in London, it was in Soho. These aren't, like, edgy places. These are places where people - and young people - hang out.
A big shop in Manhattan would feel like we were betraying our roots. And we're not just going to open a bunch of stores.
We're going to make the product as good as we can, and we're going to try to put it out as reasonably priced as we can. We don't want a $600 shirt. We want a shirt which is around $100.
I'd always loved what went on in skateboarding. I'd never skated myself, but I loved the graphics - I really liked the rebelliousness of it.
I've seen a lot of brands fail because they went, 'Hey, look, we're from New York, and that's what we're all about.' But wherever you go, people are proud of where they are. So even though we're from New York, what we do is a mindset: it's got to work in Japan, in Los Angeles, London, wherever.
It really doesn't matter what you've done in the past. We just don't rest on our laurels.
I don't wish for anybody to go out of business, but I think there are far too many things in New York that really shouldn't be here.
People should know that the idea of legal fakes is a complete farce. It would be sad if a new generation thinks that's actually legit.
We can have a leather jacket for $1,500, and if it's a good value, young people will understand that. But we also want to have the feeling that this won't be here in a month.
I think a lot of brands reach a point where they say, 'We kind of have a formula - we've got it made.' Our formula is there's no formula.
I came over here with $100; it was 1983 and I just ended up staying. New York at that time was very inexpensive and it was very easy to get a job. We lived on Staten Island and you could get cheap rent. It was a good time to be in New York.
