I am always thinking that some interesting possibility, some accidental synergy, could occur in a collaboration, and people seem to like it.
I'm always looking to make something that didn't exist before, fumbling about in the dark, not just while making a collection. The search for something new is a constant in my everyday life. But constantly searching for something new is like looking for a well in a desert.
Many parts of the media have created the situation where uninteresting fashion can thrive.
I don't look very much at magazines or go to vintage stores.
The Dover Street Markets bring brands of all disciplines together to sell their products in an open atmosphere that, most importantly, incites creativity. They are, along with the 'Comme des Garcons' stores, usually located in areas off the beaten track.
I want to create a market where people from all walks of life can encounter each other in an atmosphere of beautiful chaos, the coming together of kindred souls.
What's interesting about collaborations is the possibility for one plus one to equal three.
Not everyone necessarily needs new things all the time and creative designs. It's good to have luxury restaurants and fast-food restaurants. You need both.
I give myself limits - not only financial limits, but I also limit my method of expression, and from within those limits, I try to come up with something new and interesting.
What you wear can largely govern your feelings and your emotions, and how you look influences the way people regard you. So fashion plays an important role on both the practical level and the aesthetic level.
All kinds of ways of expression are spreading out all over the place, information is overflowing, and it's harder and harder to be excited about anything.
Clothes are only completed when somebody actually wears them. If they were art, they could be more abstract. As long as something is new and has never been seen before, I don't mind if people call it art. Wear them if you dare.
I am just working every day, day to day, with what I believe. It's a very ordinary way of dealing with your life - just dealing with your work.
If you have total freedom to design, you won't get anything interesting. So I give myself restraints in order to kind of push myself through, to create something new. It's the torture that I give myself, the pain and the struggle that I go through.
For me, creation can only come out of a certain kind of unhappiness. They say in Japan, this thing like the hungry spirit - the hungry mind - is what gets you going forward.
I built my work from within instead of satisfying a demand for sexualised and ostentatious clothing.
For me, the best way to know me is to look at my clothing.
I was not thinking about the age of Internet when I was making the fall-winter 2012 collection.
I would have liked to invent the plain white shirt, with a skirt and pants to go with it.
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.
