Dries van Noten

My office looks very empty compared with my house. The house is completely crammed full with things that Patrick and I love. It's very eclectic. There are things that have no value but which we like. We have a lot of Belgian painters; we have international painters. We have nice things; we have ugly things. I don't want that things are predictable.

I'm part of the fashion system, but I don't want to follow all the rules. I don't want to be contrarian - I just want to do my own things, which are most honest and correct to do.

I try to be as independent as possible.

Coincidence is important, the convergence of different ideas.

To create a collection, you need a narrative - an explanation to tell the team.

For me, restrictions are not always negative. Restrictions can push creativity. I like restrictions.

For me, it's really like, okay, if you go far with the unexpected materials and unexpected proportions or volumes, then keep the colors quite simple and straightforward for men.

I'm a very big fan of winter-flowering shrubs and bulbs. You have the smell, you have the color - it's really like a present from God when something like that is in flower in the middle of the snow.

I'm known for color and prints and embroideries.

I prefer a scruffy atmosphere.

I like to choose my own way forward. I really do want to create something that I personally like a lot.

For me personally, there's too much fashion around in this world.

I'm a fashion designer, not a shoe designer. I like to design clothes.

In the 1980s, I was quite well known for my knitwear, and a lot of inspiration came from carpets, where I found ways to use structures and colors and depth of colors.

People get this very romantic vision of a fashion designer who in one night makes 25 sketches and in the morning throws them on the table and there are a lot of women in white aprons with the pins on the lapel and they start to grab the sketches and... It's not like that.

The garden is my second profession. It's 22 hectares, which is a big garden. I really need it, going from the flower garden, the shrubs and the trees, the vegetable garden, all these things.

My partner, Patrick, and I live in an old house in Belgium that was built in 1840 and is out in the countryside between Antwerp and Brussels.

My morning routine varies by how much time I have. In the winter, I like to take baths, but in the summer, I prefer a good shower with some soap and then maybe some moisturizer afterward. I use D.R. Harris and Geo. F. Trumper products, which we also stock at our shops in Paris and Antwerp.

For breakfast, I usually have a slice of bread with some homemade jam made from fruit from the garden; the type of jam depends on what particular fruit is being harvested. I learned how to make it from my mother.

For me, a show is an event - something we work toward that focuses an idea.

You'd think after 100 shows you'd be used to this, but it's not true for me. It always feels like the first show.

I started the company in 1986, but we didn't have the money to do a show until '92.

I look back on shows now that I thought were good, and I don't like them so much anymore. Or criticism I didn't understand or agree with now makes sense.

We always say that fashion is a reflection of our times.

Many a fashion designer's career was founded using packs upon packs of Polaroids, and though we love them, we forget that the image quality was often circumspect.

Picasso took scraps of wallpaper, and instead of using paint and a brush, he used all the existing elements which he made his artwork with.

The word 'fashion' I don't like because fashion is something that's over in six months. I'd like to find a word that's more timeless.

Fashion shows are really my way of communication.

Change is not always bad. Change can be good.

I collect objects I fall in love with more than antiques per se. Value is not a criteria that attracts me to something.

When I have to do something fast, I wear the most unflattering rubber pants over my pants and a big easy sweater. I can get on my knees in the garden in whatever condition, and when I'm done, I can take it off, get in the car, and drive to the office. It's the most practical thing.

I make clothes people can wear; I don't make art.

Various different people have inspired me throughout my career. From Francis Bacon to Vassareli, Coco Chanel to Christian Dior, Cecil Beaton, musicians, architects... the list is endless.

When we were studying at the Royal Antwerp Academy, we were taught to seek inspiration from everyone, everything and everywhere. My parents and grandparents were also a great inspiration for me a very young age.

In the design process, there's a need to be culturally comprehensive.

I think by my father owning a store, I was definitely aware of the commercial aspect of selling clothes. His shop was a place I enjoyed spending time in as a boy, so I learned things almost by osmosis at times, by literally just being around all the action and not really despite myself.

I prefer to see a good exhibit sponsored by a brand than a bad exhibit due to lack of funds.

I have a responsibility to the people who work for me, the manufacturers I work with. There is no point to clothes that don't sell.

When I get very stressed, I make jam. I like things that produce a quick result, because fashion has such a long lead time. With jam, you start, and two-three hours later, you have 36 little pots, all full.

I prefer ugly things. I prefer things which are surprising.

Clothes is just something you put on to cover yourself... fashion is a way to communicate.

I have nothing against glamorous dressing.

One of the big luxuries of being in Antwerp is that I can easily walk in the city. In Paris and New York, I am more recognized.

My childhood was very, very, very, very traditional.

I love the journeys of research and discovery their development takes me on. I see prints as less 'decorative' than many might, and more fundamental to a garment's core.

I'm really hands-on. My team brings in elements, but, every season, it's kind of a personal struggle to find the balance and to see how far I want to push the elements.

All my collections are very personal. It's also because I'm so involved in making the collections.

I have my own office, and I'm there during the evenings and weekends. But during the week, I'm sitting in the middle of my studio, talking with everybody, deciding together every detail, every pallette, every yarn, every colour.

I don't design for myself. I design something keeping in mind that it has to please a lot of women.

I was a kid at the end of the 1960s and in the early 1970s, so a lot of things changed. You had pop music coming up, with David Bowie, you had new television programmes and all these things. I was fascinated.