Marc Jacobs
I'm not really well educated - other than an art survey course at the High School of Art and Design in New York when I was, like, 15. I don't know the history of art, but I got over intimidation from the art world when I realized that I was allowed to feel whatever I want and like whatever I want.Collection: Design
Marc Jacobs is full of creative people and Louis Vuitton is again a name on the door, a name that has existed for many years but I'm a collaborator there and I bring in other people, other artists and I work with a great creative design team.Collection: Design
I wouldn't know how to find eBay on the computer if my life depended on it.Collection: Computers
Grunge is a hippied romantic version of punk.Collection: Romantic
I mean, I'd love to have a private jet - I know people who fly by private jet all the time... I've hitched a ride a few times and it is not overrated at all; it's a great way to travel!Collection: Travel
I always find beauty in things that are odd and imperfect - they are much more interesting.Collection: Beauty
For so many years, I felt so insecure, so inferior, and I still have those moments, but I have a newfound confidence since I got in shape and changed my diet.Collection: Diet
Design is a series of creative choices - it's a collaborative effort, an evolutionary process. You choose your fabrics depending upon what you want to say, then you work with mills to get those fabrics. Through the process, you realize what you want it to be.Collection: Design
We don't design by calculator or by demographics or anything like that. We really are a group of creative, sensitive people. We have our charmed little world where we get to make things. We're really lucky.Collection: Design
Whether it's an $11 flip-flop or a $2 key ring or a $2,000 dress, they're all done with integrity. They're all done with a design sense. As long as the creativity exists, then I don't think it's a sellout. A sellout is putting your name on any piece of crap and then expecting people to buy it because it's got your name on it.Collection: Design
But I'm blessed to work with great people. I collaborate with brilliant stylists both here and in Paris. I work with a great design team. I really allow everyone to bring their ideas. I almost rely on them to inspire me.Collection: Design
I still appreciate individuality. Style is much more interesting than fashion, really.
I think there is something about luxury - it's not something people need, but it's what they want. It really pulls at their heart.
I really do believe that art changes the landscape of the world.
I have the word 'Shameless' tattooed on my chest.
Clothes mean nothing until someone lives in them.
Sometimes, you just have to clear your head and get out to see other things. It is very important to be nourished. I love to go to museums and galleries, I like to see theatre, film, dance - anything creative. It doesn't promise you inspiration, but it nourishes your creative soul, and that's good.
Change is a great and horrible thing, and people love it or hate it at the same time. Without change, however, you just don't move.
I don't love Photoshop; I like imperfection. It doesn't mean ugly. I love a girl with a gap between her teeth, versus perfect white veneers. Perfection is just... boring. Perfect is what's natural or real; that is beauty.
Awkwardness gives me great comfort. I've never been cool, but I've felt cool. I've been in the cool place, but I wasn't really cool - I was trying to pass for hip or cool. It's the awkwardness that's nice.
I remember walking the dog one day, I saw a car full of teenage girls, and one of them rolled down the window and yelled, 'Marc Jacobs!' in a French accent.
It just seemed too weird to me. I don't know, maybe they were smoking a joint in the car downstairs from their parents' apartment. I had to go that far to put together a scenario of how they could have possibly recognized me.
We don't need fashion to survive, we just desire it so much.
Any opportunity to adorn oneself is human, and accessories are an easy way to do it.
I like to take on the thing I don't like at the moment. I like to find something that looks wrong or feels off, something that I would never have done in the past, like brocade. And then all of a sudden, if we can make brocade work, then we've really done something, because I hate it. And that's just a reference. I don't actually hate brocade.
You can ask me anything. I'm an open book.
There is a small world of people who are very interested in contemporary art and a slightly bigger world of people who look at contemporary art. But then there is a much larger world that doesn't realise how influential art is on things that they actually look at.
It's a magpie aesthetic: If something is hideous, that's interesting. It's kind of the same sensibility that Andy Warhol had. He was interested in everything and soaked up what he saw like a sponge.
I like spending time at home. In Paris, people drop by and have a bite to eat, or they drop by and watch Friends on TV. I take my dog to the office there, and I walk to work sometimes.
Sometimes there are two very opposite directions, and we go with the stronger one at the end. It's an impulse thing, like, 'Oh, I love both so much, but it's got to be one or the other because the two don't work together.'
Luxury is anything you don't need, right? I mean, you need food, water, clothing, shelter... but good wine, good food, beautiful interiors, nice clothes; those aren't necessities, they are luxuries - it's all luxury.
Sofia is so active, and she made The Virgin Suicides, which I thought was great - all these things are inspiring to me, not in terms of creating a particular dress, but just in terms of knowing that there is this type of woman out there.
I'm useless at staring at a piece of white paper. But if you put a piece of white paper with a black line on it in front of me, I'll say no that black line should be red and it should go this way or that way.
I don't think, 'Gee, I'd like to dress this person.' There was a picture in Us magazine. It was a jersey dress, and Courtney Love was wearing it. I have this thing about Courtney Love, this funny worship.
In terms of having a business, I wanted to let it go beyond what my personal taste is. Basically, I'm in a kilt and a white shirt every day. So, you know, I don't have a lot of scope, and I'm really picky about what I wear.
I love to take things that are everyday and comforting and make them into the most luxurious things in the world.
I think journalists have the right to their opinions but I think their opinions should be based on history and what they see, not what they feel, how long they've been waiting or whether it's raining or it's snowing or whatever.
It's sometimes said that I'm rebellious and I do things to push people's buttons, but I just like the challenge.
We're developing things, but I don't know what we'll go with for the show, so I don't like to talk about it.
I don't know, but I always loved that image of a girl putting toenail polish on a guy - her boyfriend, or something like that. Or a guy waking up in the morning and reaching over and putting on his girlfriend's shirt. Like Keith Richards putting on one of Anita Pallenberg's blouses, or Courtney Love putting nail polish on Kurt Cobain.
I love the entire ritual of getting dressed. When we do a fashion show, we try to send out a message; we couldn't do that without the hair and makeup. The whole is equal to the sum of its parts.
To me, beauty and makeup and color is like the finishing touch on everything.
I have no problem going on record with this and probably have gone on record with this before, there aren't that many people who I respect. There just aren't.
I think of many people and no one as a muse. I love the way Sofia looks always, and I love the way Kim looks always. Fashion may be part of their world, but it's not their whole life. It's not everything.
I always find it kind of embarrassing, kind of funny, and kind of exciting. In New York I'm recognized a lot, although nobody says anything. You know, they stare at you just a second too long. But in Paris it's not as commonplace to be recognized.
I'm someone who came to Paris as a teenager, and I dreamed of coming back to Paris as a visitor. I never dreamed of having a job at the biggest luxury house in Paris and, you know, 15 odd years later, I'm still here.
But in another, I think a woman's going to go into a shop to find a coat or a jacket and I just don't think she's not going to go into a shop because of a bad review she probably didn't even read.
That was a time when I did love music, I couldn't get enough of what was going on. Maybe it was Nirvana that brought me back. I guess it was a comfort because something that sounded so right - and non-commercial - had become so influential, so immediately.
I am so appalled by the whole social media thing. I don't get it; it doesn't appeal to me. Neither does a computer or working on a laptop.
I want to see women in pantsuits or two pieces, even something a little bit gaudy. It's so much more exciting than just another nice dress.