Raf Quotes & Sayings

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. — Raf Simons

Computers let people avoid people, going out to explore. It's so different to just open a website instead of looking at a Picasso in a museum in Paris. — Raf Simons

I had to leave school at 14 because my father got injured in the mines and I had to support my family. I was an undertaker's assistant, then a plasterer, before doing my military service in the RAF. All the while, I was doing amateur dramatics and dreaming of getting a scholarship to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. — Brian Blessed

Dress codes and gestures and attitudes have always inspired me, as has youth culture in general, although now I question it more. If you analyze youth cultures over history, there has always been something strict about them - you have to be like this or like that. — Raf Simons

You don't like people?" Raf asked. "I don't like what people do to each other. — Matthew Reilly

I'm very attracted to things that I can't define. — Raf Simons

My point of view is that if I love a certain kind of beauty, I want more of that beauty. I don't need 200 different beauties. — Raf Simons

I don't really know; I'm not in the Operations Room, you see. All I do know is that the world has a Chief who was victorious when the powers of darkness struck at Him with everything they had. He has the plans today. The darkness won't last forever. There's a splendor beyond.
~Flying Officer George Dymory Ingleford, Enemy Brothers — Constance Savery

Somewhere, in some city in America, someone is wearing my clothes, and I'm happy with that. — Raf Simons

I'm not so rock and roll. I'm more techno. — Raf Simons

My dad only ever talked about two things: bicycles and Mercedes. — Raf Simons

I'm not an isolated person. The more I connect to people, the more I have the feeling that things work. — Raf Simons

Aeroplanes interested me, and at the outbreak of the Second World War, I joined the RAF as a volunteer reservist. I took the opportunity of studying the books which the RAF made available for radio mechanics and looked forward to an interesting course in radio. — Godfrey Hounsfield

Berlin is in a state of transition. There are lots of people who don't stay here. They pass through. They might not 'clean up,' but they mature. It is a city where people spend a significant time in their lives, and then they move on. — Raf Simons

I don't have so many things in the fashion world that interest me. It's probably because I am so deeply into it. Often when you go very deep into something, you also discover what it's about, and you understand it better. With the art world, I still have a lot of curiosity. — Raf Simons

We are very excited to re-launch the collaboration with Fred Perry. We have great appreciation for the heritage of the brand as well as their dynamism in guiding the brand towards the future. Their openness to create synergies between both our brands will bring interesting, creative results. — Raf Simons

L.A. interests me, the whole band scene and relaxed carefree feel, but it does not mean you have to dress like a hippy. — Raf Simons

My mother was a cleaning lady all her life. — Raf Simons

I know this independence is what people like most about my brand. — Raf Simons

I couldn't go now to a brand that had a niche attitude like ... gothic. I couldn't do that. Well, I could do it, but I wouldn't find it interesting, challenging. — Raf Simons

Before Michael Caine you had to have been in the RAF to be an actor. — Bob Hoskins

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. — Raf Simons

My father, who was a sergeant in the RAF during the Second World War, was killed in a hitchhiking accident while returning home on compassionate leave. As a result, my mother had to get work, as a nurse, and at seven the RAF put me into a boarding school and ex-orphanage called the Royal Wolverhampton School. — Eric Idle

As an industrial designer, you design the thing by yourself, and then it goes away from you, whereas fashion is in constant relation to the body and to psychology. It makes it more complicated, and it makes it more challenging. — Raf Simons

I'm usually very attracted to things that I can't define. If something's too clear, it's very often not inspiring to me anymore. — Raf Simons

You can instantly spot a Chanel woman, so I want to develop the Dior woman. — Raf Simons

We're not feeling edgy; the system is feeling nervous. — Red Army Faction

I'm very scared sometimes that fashion might attack its own magic by the amount of exposure. — Raf Simons

I see there is a lot of behaviour in men's fashion, which is systematic. It's a lot about all these kind of clothes that can be easily combined with each other, and it's less and less, I think, about making a fashion statement. — Raf Simons

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. — Raf Simons

Fashion has a long interest in collaborative situations. — Raf Simons

In its offensive against the state, the urban guerilla cannot resort to terrorism as a weapon. — Red Army Faction

Disaster began at the end of September with an attack by RAF Bomber Command which drained the Dortmund-Ems canal. — Anonymous

But overall I want to make sure people fall in love with the clothes and that they are satisfied — Raf Simons

Antwerp literally was a trash hole, but fashion changed that. The designers there were extreme, and their work was hard to understand. But now, people from all over the world come to Antwerp to shop. — Raf Simons

I had that morning gone to say my farewells to Broadhurst and to the RAF. I had made a point of going to HQ at Schleswig in my 'Grand Charles.' Coming back I had taken him high up in the cloudless summer sky, for it was only there that I could fittingly take my leave. Together we climbed for the last time straight towards the sun. We looped once, perhaps twice, we lovingly did a few slow, meticulous rolls, so that I could take away in my finger-tips the vibration of his supple, docile wings. — Pierre Clostermann

One of the first things I picked up when I was very, very young out of a record store was work from Peter Saville - the early things he used to do for Factory Records. — Raf Simons

I met Richard Burton, an RAF cadet on a two-term course. I would have flirted more enthusiastically if it had not been for the horrid boils on the back of his neck. — Nina Bawden

The educated man, habitually, almost without noticing it, sees the present as something that grows out of a long perspective of centuries. In my the minds of my RAF hearers this perspective simply did not exist. It seemed to me that they did not really believe that we have any reliable knowledge of historic man. But this was often curiously combined with a conviction that we knew a great deal about Prehistoric Man: doubtless because Prehistoric Man is labelled "Science" (which is reliable) whereas Napoleon or Julius Caesar is labelled as "History" (which is not. — C.S. Lewis

It was the rootlessness that went with being the son of an RAF officer that shaped me. I had been to 11 schools by the time I was 9. — Jonathan Powell

which is why she tried to join the RAF, so she could obtain a socially respectable opportunity to gratify her homicidal urges." "So — Jon Ronson

And at the end of the evening he and Dym had made plans, airy ambitious plans, of all that they would do after the war. Euphemia had laughed at the planners. "What boundless energy you have, Jacob!" she had said.
Jacob had turned - Tony could see the dark, curly head and sparkling eyes quite plainly - and smiled at her. "Madam," he had said, "if I had a thousand lives, I could fill them all. — Constance Savery

As a journalist, I cannot help imagining with excitement a new era with a face-off between Hedi Slimane at YSL and Raf Simons at Dior - a magnificent battle of style and wills to echo the Armani/Versace, Gucci/Prada or even Chanel/Schiaparelli face-offs of earlier years. But I remind myself that this is not a game of chess. — Suzy Menkes

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. — Raf Simons

The fashion thing is something I do, and yes, it is definitely also becoming a part of myself and my personality. It also doesn't really feel like a job, either: it's a dream or a passion or something. — Raf Simons

When it's only clothes, that is not satisfying enough for me. I don't think I could do this for 10, 20 years if that was all. It also has to be about a psychology or a mentality or a concept. — Raf Simons

I'm shy, but not on a one-to-one basis. Over the years, I have become acclimatised to a bit of publicity. — Raf Simons

I thought I'd join the RAF and become a wing commander. I realised this wasn't possible, although I do have a pilot's licence. — Mike Oldfield

I was raised in a very happy nest by very happy people, and I like to think that those are enough ingredients to make me succeed at Dior. — Raf Simons

I spent my earliest years in Colwyn Bay in north Wales with my mother and grandmother, while my father was stationed with the RAF in India. — Terry Jones

I'm fascinated by the way Diane Arbus saw things. She came from this fashion background and then twisted it. — Raf Simons

Following this logic, to bomb BASF in Ludwigshafen would be to mock the people who bombed BASF in Brazil. The Latin American comrades feel differently. BASF does as well. — Red Army Faction

At LVMH, we have amazing heritage brands, and we put interesting talents in those brands, sometimes very young, like we did at Givenchy with Riccardo Tisci at the time, or like we just did with J.W. Anderson at Loewe, but also talents that are already further along in their careers, like Raf Simons at Christian Dior or Nicolas at Vuitton. — Delphine Arnault

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. — Raf Simons

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? — Raf Simons

I don't find it difficult anymore, because these days, Raf is only men and Dior is only women. I found it much more complicated when I was doing Jil Sander for men and women. It wasn't that it was the same, but I'm specific about where I want to go, and when you suddenly have to do two men's collections in the same moment, that was more difficult. — Raf Simons

In fashion design, you can divide people into two groups. You have people who come with an aesthetic that is there forever, even if it evolves. Then you have people I call 'jumpers.' One season it can be this; the next season it's completely something else. I always knew I am more of a jumper. — Raf Simons

Someone else knows," I said. "The three most dangerous words in the secrecy business. But there it is. I know, and Ms. Nice knows. Which is why we came back with the RAF. Because where would your plane have landed? Guantanamo, maybe. But it didn't, and we're back in America, free and clear. And we know. I'm sure you could crush Ms. Nice's career, but you'll never find me. I'll always be out there. And you know me, General. You've known me a long time. I don't forgive, and I don't forget. And I won't have to do much. Talking might be enough. Suppose the SVR found out it was you who got Khenkin killed? Some of those IOUs might get canceled. And they might retaliate. Rumors might start, about poor old Tom O'Day, who got so desperate he came up with a cockamamie scheme. — Lee Child

My inspiration is endless; I can't define it. It is a constant flow and evolution. In general, I'm taking it from everywhere. People get nervous when they walk with me, as I'll see something and suddenly have to text it to myself. — Raf Simons

Fashion is such an octopus. You're connected to so many people: suppliers, pattern makers, production teams, marketing teams, vendors. — Raf Simons

My ideas for the next collection always happen a couple of months before the show. I have learned to shut up and not bother my assistants with it. — Raf Simons

I am somebody who focuses on a dialogue between generations - that's the drive of my work. I believe the young generation take the power; they'll take over at one point, but the older generation, they'll push it away only because of the fear. I'm the opposite; I'm curious. — Raf Simons

Until August the Luftwaffe had raided only ports and airfields. Fitz had explained, in an unusually candid moment, that the British were not so scrupulous: the government had approved bombing of targets in German cities back in May, and all through June and July the RAF had dropped bombs on women and children in their homes. The German public had been enraged by this and demanded retaliation. The Blitz was the result. — Ken Follett

I fantasise about what the future could be in terms of aesthetic and psychology. It's the most difficult thing to do because you have to start from the past - your favourite architect, your favourite song - you take it all with you. — Raf Simons

The fact is that the system in the metropole reproduces itself through an ongoing offensive against the people's psyche, not in an openly fascist way, but rather through the market.
Therefore, to write off entire sections of the population as an impediment to anti-imperialist struggle, simply because they don't fit into Marx' analysis of capitalism, is as insane and sectarian as it is un-Marxist. — Red Army Faction

My education was paid for by the RAF Benevolent Fund, so a charity school, run like an orphanage, with uniforms and beatings. It was tough, but it got me to Cambridge - like being a chrysalis suddenly becoming a butterfly. — Eric Idle

You cannot have adoration without being criticized. — Raf Simons

My aim is a very modern Dior, but at the end of the day, I also look back, — Raf Simons

It felt wrong for me to stay totally connected to that very strict way of approaching the heritage - what it can be, what it cannot be. That was also the period where I really thought, "No, let's open it up." — Raf Simons

Our society wants things to grow, and our society wants things to become bigger and bigger. Everything has to be put under the spotlight. — Raf Simons

In my opinion, Christian Dior was never, ever theatre. — Raf Simons

In fashion, general people will look to the piece itself. [Some designers] concentrate on, 'How can I make this seam look special?' or 'What am I going to do with that button so it looks interesting?' I am not interested in that. At the moment, I am more interested in the shape and the form. I have a big desire to make clothes without defining them. — Raf Simons

The fashion world doesn't know the word 'stop,' so you have to make sure there are sublime moments every day. — Raf Simons

I once met an RAF pilot who told me of what he called a "bird strike". This, rather unfairly in my view, made it sound as if it was the bird's fault; as if the little feathered chap had deliberately tried to head-butt twenty tons of metal travelling in the opposite direction at just under the speed of sound, out of spite. — Hugh Laurie

We all know and we all perceive Christian Dior in a very specific way. — Raf Simons

People who don't know me look at my world as something very hard-core, and I don't feel it that way. It's not what attracts me. — Raf Simons

I'm a designer, and for me, things are always evolving, and such evolution is necessary. — Raf Simons

I dont want to show clothes, I want to show my attitude, my past, present and future. I use memories and future visions and try to place them in todays world. — Raf Simons

The Chanel woman? I don't even need to see; I smell her from round the corner. — Raf Simons

Every weekend, I'm on the highway to Antwerp. I need to be there, to have the calm. It's a whole different life: I jump on my bike, and it's so small, I can be anywhere in a minute. I like to be at home when there's free time because when you're at a big company, you're constantly surrounded by 30 people. — Raf Simons

In the nineties, it was common to see people who expressed themselves through one designer - the Jil Sander woman, the Martin Margiela woman. You saw her on the street, and you knew who she was. — Raf Simons

The rejection of sabotage in the metropole, based on the argument that it would be better to take things over instead of destroying them, is based on the dictum: The people of the Third World should wait for their revolution until the masses in the metropole catch up. — Red Army Faction

There are people who, if they see something in couture that they perceive as ready-to-wear, they're in shock. — Raf Simons

I am always attracted to the moments when a person who is associated with a certain message, image or sensibility evolves. I am very interested in how audiences respond to that maturation and absorb the evolution. — Raf Simons

I remember one time I went to Craigslist to find something; that's how bad I wanted it. It was a pair of Raf Simons - this was like 2010. But Raf said he was going to make them for me. — ASAP Rocky

Until I was eighteen, I did not know that you could study fashion design or art. I really didn't know. I already had my nose in the art world; I was already looking at things, but I didn't really get it that you could study that because my school was a very different environment. — Raf Simons

It would be nice to be a professional pilot. I'm an amateur pilot at the moment. I've got a lot of friends in the RAF and I don't think I've ever met a group of people who love their job as much as they do. — Martin Shaw

Flares and small incendiary bombs began to fall as the car approached Kreuzberg. The neighborhood was a typical target for the RAF's current strategy of killing as many civilian factory workers as possible. With staggering hypocrisy Churchill and Attlee were claiming they attacked only military targets, and civilian casualties were a regrettable side effect. Berliners knew better. — Ken Follett

They see in the population's hostility towards the left only the hostility towards the left, not the hatred against those who are socially privileged. — Red Army Faction

I want to get away from couture just being done for a picture or for a single moment on the red carpet. I want to try and convince women that couture can be worn in the day and that there's a reality and relevance there, because that's what Mr. Christian Dior wanted. — Raf Simons

I never really have to sit at a desk thinking, 'What should I do now?' It doesn't work like that for me, and it never has. My thinking process is constant. — Raf Simons

I don't see Dior as something that could become mine. I see it as a dialogue with the women who wear it. I want to stay connected to them rather than to an abstract brand. — Raf Simons

Unlike fashion, art isn't applied. It doesn't have to serve anybody. It doesn't have to be there for any other reason than to give an impression of what the world is about. — Raf Simons

Many at the State Department think its their job, not the Army's, to develop cultural and regional expertise and relationships. In such quarters, the RAF concept looks less like an innovative approach to global risk management than yet another military effort to replace diplomats with soldiers. — Rosa Brooks

Sometimes it's more a matter of collaboration which matters in a collection. — Raf Simons

I wanted an idea of the future, a new femininity. I wanted you to feel that you wouldn't quite know where these women were coming from and where they were going to. — Raf Simons

High time they put the RAF in kilts. — Elizabeth Wein

What I've been conscious of, from the beginning is that I can't be Jil Sander. — Raf Simons

For me, Warhol made so much sense. — Raf Simons

Dresden, which I am told presents no military or industrial targets whatsoever for the RAF. — Paul Russell