The Best Interview The Endless Bummer New York No Surf Surf Blog of Champions Has Ever Posted That Was Authored By Someone Else

You’ve been doing collections all over the world.
Let’s not exaggerate. The world is very big.

Okay, let’s say you’ve been doing collections in varied places. Why?
I don’t have to go to a place to spend time there, to get involved. It’s all in my imagination. It’s not a reconstitution. It’s an evocation, which is very different. We are not into historical detail, we are into mood. I have a girl who works for me who is from Korea, and she is afraid — she says we are not Korean enough, and I say I don’t want to be Korean. Forget about your folklore. I can take a few inspirations, but I can certainly not do an homage. That’s not my trip. I’m a fashion vampire. I take what I need and I leave the rest.

So what are you going to suck out of New York?
Nothing. I see nothing, I do nothing, I do everything from my room in the Mercer, working at my desk on things with Choupette keeping me company — I don’t force her, by the way. She comes naturally.

If you stay inside all the time, where do you find inspiration?
I have kind of flashes in my mind and I try to put them on paper. Thinking? No. That is too serious. I am kind of good with words, so I could tell you a complicated story about inspiration or whatever, but no. In fact, I don’t even know myself. That is the big secret of the story. That there is no story. I see things in the middle of the night. I draw them on paper and I don’t even think about it. I’m like a machine in a way — just made of some electronic stuff. Vaguely digital.

So you never go out?
I imagine the world from my window. I’m happy wherever I am. I’m very happy to be in the Mercer right now because I bring myself with me wherever I go, thank God. Traveling, I think it’s a nightmare today. The airports and things the people in the street with the selfies … I like to stay at home and read.

What are you reading?
I will not talk about that. I like to read biographies, history, philosophical things like this. But it’s for my private use, and not for making people say,Oh, how clever this stupid man is. I don’t make intellectual conversation. I’m very superficial. I’m just a fashion designer. Fashion designers look at fashion magazines, right?

Do you watch movies or TV?
I don’t go to movie theaters because I don’t want to be photographed by strangers. People bother me wherever I go. I like to imagine the world my way. I don’t want second-rate images of the world.

What were you going for with the protest show?

My mother was a feminist. One of her heroes was Hedwig Dohm, who started to be a feminist in Germany in the 1800s when women had not a great position. People don’t refer to her enough in this world. And my mother, you know, she thought women should be alive … she would always tell the men around her how things should be done. She was very tough, and very nasty. My father was very sweet and her victim. My father found exactly the wife that was not for him. He could never relax.

Whom are you more like, your mother or your father?
I am more like my mother. She used to say, You look like me but not as good. And this is just the kind of line I use.

The original & rest of this interview can be found here...