taken from:
Prada/Raf for System Magazine – Jul 24, 2018
Raf Simons for GQ – Jan 27, 2017
Miuccia Prada: It is absolutely time to rethink these systems and structures that have come to define us.
Miuccia Prada: I like the idea of sharing my ideas with more people; that’s the interesting part, to work outside the small elite that I know. You are obliged to face the truth of different countries, of different people, but at the same time, the sheer quantity of comments – clever or stupid – that comes with a bigger audience is something that doesn’t work. The whole world is talking, but there is nothing coming out.
Raf Simons: Beyond the small group of people around me – my assistants, my friends, my family – I really feel a lack of dialogue with people I have something seriously in common with. I mean, I don’t think I can relate to absolutely everybody, but I was starting to feel very isolated in this world.
Miuccia Prada: I think there’s something slightly wrong about this idea of big brands. Raf did the biggest thing by leaving [Dior] – chapeau, respect – because he probably didn’t feel comfortable anymore. Of course, Prada is my own company, so it’s my own fault that it is the size it is, but now I’m at a moment where I really want to focus on what I like, what I care about. I don’t have to care if we don’t grow enough for the market. Whatever, who cares, I really want Prada to stay in a context that I like. Because we grow, grow, grow and suddenly you start to lose control, and there’s something wrong with that, now I think we stopped that.
Raf Simons: Maybe fashion should operate more like a museum, where you have a museum curator, but you have guest curators come in, too. I think that the fashion business has recently stopped exploring its own possibilities; it should become much more liberated once again.
Miuccia Prada: Yes, and I am thinking more and more about exactly this kind of idea, because it feels like it is needed – not just to get the world talking, but to broaden the horizons of what fashion can be, and also to have fun. What I mainly think is that you have fun when you really do good stuff, and that fun comes with other people.
Raf Simons: For a moment, but not personally, because I love him and collaborating together was easy. But in terms of what Sterling brought, it was something that I would not have come up with alone. I kept thinking the collection had to be more special and he kept saying, ‘No, it has to be a normal shirt, and a normal pair of jeans, nothing more, not a special cut or design’. And at the end, when it all came together, I was like, ‘Man, you were right’. Sometimes you just need this different eye and different mindset to break out from your own systematic behaviour.
Raf Simons: The reason I wear Prada is not just because I like the clothes; it’s also because Miuccia has a mindset that I can relate to. You know, there are all these brands in the world today making so many beautiful things – because everybody knows how to make clothes and design patterns and make things look beautiful – but I don’t want all that shit if the mindset is not what I can relate to. So even if a brand has a beautiful coat, if the person who designed it is not the kind of person I can relate to in terms of vision or opinion or culture, then I just don’t want to wear it. And I think that is different from lots of people.
Miuccia Prada: I like the idea of doing something that is new, that is for sure. At least I tend towards that. But it sometimes feels like everything has been done, so today it is sometimes more about context and how you choose to put things together.
Raf Simons: With my personal brand I am doing two shows a year, but I could also decide to only do a single show every three years. To please myself I could do that, but I also know what that would mean economically. But there are now a lot of young artists following a system: they produce work for every art fair, every event, and there is an agenda for each show. But by doing that, then everything becomes too similar. The weird thing is that as a designer or an artist, you are always confronted with your own sense of will; it is about what you want and what you don’t want, whether you allow yourself or not to do these things. And that is the most difficult thing, I think. When Miuccia speaks about her dissatisfaction, that is something I recognize very much. While sometimes I might pretend to be very satisfied, in a way, I always feel restless.
Raf Simons: I demand from the people around me that they tell me if it is good or bad. I’d hate to be with people who say it is good all the time.
Creatively speaking, when are you happiest?
Raf Simons: In the creative environment I think I am most at peace when it is just a normal working day, in-house. Miuccia Prada: That is the moment I enjoy the most, too: when I can finally work without distraction, because there is almost always something that is involving other people. But the day when there is nothing to do except just work is like, ‘Ahhhhh’. It’s so relaxing.
Because I’m really still challenged by doing these two different things. I always like to do that. In the early days, before I became creative director of Jil Sander, I was also always doing two things. The brand and art curating. Or the brand and teaching at university. And then it became two brands. Jil-Raf. Dior-Raf. Now Calvin-Raf. And it’s very interesting for me, those two roles. I think it makes me very alert. Instead of becoming lazy in your own settled thinking process and environment. But I just can’t cope with the travel anymore so everything was restructured.
I used to have this love and hate relationship with fashion because I thought it was a lower form of creative expression. And at the same time I started to feel that it was dull. I thought, Oh my, we just keep on producing clothes, clothes. Like, we could do something so much more relevant, you know? Until one person said to me—and I’m not going to name the person—but the person literally slapped me in the face and said, you have to start looking at it differently, because otherwise you’re never going to be proud and happy about what you do. Because you inspire people. You bring something out that they literally need. So you do a good thing. Not a bad thing. And that’s how I’ve started to think lately.
I can just say that I know that I’m doing something that people are going to feel good about. I know that. Maybe some of them hate my stuff, and they can go somewhere else. But I’m not doing nothing. I’m already doing something. I think that if people have to deal with this thing that they can’t deal with, and there is something they really like, it’s going to make them feel better.
Do you think about going beyond collaboration and going into other mediums? Thinking, yes. But I will not do. Not now.
Because of time? Or that your creative expression is best focused on fashion? Definitely not because of time. That would not be a reason. It’s always horrible, time. If you’re convinced about something, you will manage it. It’s not that, I think it’s more that if I would step into another field it would require full dedication.