A lot of my collections are informed by nostalgia. I think that's because I loved clothes early on. I remember, at maybe age five, being concerned about what I wore, right down to the underwear.
Designers have a reputation for setting the tone for what people - and especially women - are supposed to wear. How long their skirts should be, things like that. I have a different philosophy: put something out there with humour; let people see that and come around to it on their own.
I'm not anti-intellectual, but primarily, I try to feel things. Emotions aren't always rational; it's not possible to put them into words.
I've met people with my prints tattooed on them, my face tattooed on them - I have that commitment and love.
I get love from fans in a big enough dosage that it acts as a shield, and I would not sacrifice that love in order to please the industry.
When I design, I always pull from things that are significant to me. In my work, I search for happiness and then try to convey that joy in the clothes.
I know that my image and my clothing and my output are very colorful and can be arresting and startling in some respects. That is the nature of my work, but I am a simple farm boy, and I am very calm by nature.
I have lots of muses, but one of my main girls is Cara Delevingne. She epitomises the way to wear my clothes. I love how she mixes up her style and the way she has so much fun. I simply adore her.
I think fashion takes itself way too seriously. It's just fashion, people. It's just clothes. It should be frivolous and fun. You're not meant to see it as church and pray to a blouse.
I feel my role is to push boundaries. I don't like things to be safe and sedentary. So controversy is the cross I have to bear.
Music and fashion combined make such a lethal weapon in my opinion.
I'm never going to be inspired by some obscure film, which isn't to say I don't enjoy that sort of thing. I just want to share my work with everyone.
I like to think of my work and the way people approach it in the same way people approach a Lichtenstein painting. You can write a one-hundred-page dissertation about why he used comics. Or it could be like, 'This is cute!'
I was Hillary in '08. I love Obama, but I was Hillary first, so I was happy to be back there with her again.
Posterity is something I'm a big fan of because that's how you leave your legacy. Not to sound pompous, but just to be truthful.
I was born dirt-poor with barely a stitch on my back, and no name or prestige attached to me, and no real clout or connections.
For me, actresses are constantly chameleons, and so they are taking a backseat to their own personality. I don't feel like we're trying to show off their personality as much as let them be a blank slate. It's precisely the reason why I dress more musicians than I do actresses.
With the clothes I design, I think about my friends, how I'd want them to dress, what I'd want them to wear.
One thing I have that the majority of other designers don't is humor. That's distinctly my approach, and it was distinctly Franco Moschino's, too.
I want my clothes to have a life and then end up in a secondhand store, where some cool girl discovers them 20 years later. If the runway or red carpet is the only life clothes have, it's sad.
