Marcel Wanders
M.A.C. stands for makeup, art, and cosmetics. We're about bringing all these worlds together - makeup, design, fashion.
Some people have a concept of design: that it should be without the maker. I have been educated in this way, the traditional way. But I am not naive. I know that we make my things, and that people want them. I am signing them - and I am winking at them.
I like to be the jester - he is the only one the king doesn't question.
Every project has its own logic and parameters. In some objects, functionality is primary, and in others, it is rather inconsequential.
An object should elicit desire, and often it happens not because people need it but because they love it.
My design always has a political agenda. When I borrow components from various cultures and juxtapose them in an object, it is a message that co-existence is indeed possible. Design creates an ideal world where different ideas live close to each other in perfect harmony.
Beauty is only about relationships. Nothing is beautiful on its own.
Nothing grows old faster than the new.
By training, I'm an engineer, but I don't tell anyone because it bores people.
To me, relaxing doesn't mean that we play ding-dong songs and look at a wall of bamboo. It's just completely unoriginal.
There is no one I'd like to exclude when I design. It's not like I'm trying to design for everyone. Probably can't do that. Yet I try not to exclude anyone.
To transfer food into a bowl from a pan that you've just cooked in, it's a loss of energy; it's wasteful. People think it's very sophisticated, I don't think it's so smart.
The one thing we should address is how design can play a role in the psychological durability of objects, to think of how objects can be engineered in a way that they will be good over time.
If we want a world that is truly sustainable, we have to realize that something old can also be perfect. Otherwise, we'll just throw away our yesterday.
Amsterdam is a breeding ground for new creative pursuits in many areas fueled by a tolerance and openness to ideas unlike any world city I've been to. There is something for everyone here, especially when you dare to go off the beaten path.
When I was a student, my first luxury purchase was a drafting table. It may not seem like a major purchase, but for me, it was the most important thing I could think of to spend my money on.
Being open to the unexpected allows me to bring so much to my craft.
I listen to a variety of music. I like everything from old Arabic music to Portuguese fados.
Why would you spend your life and your time doing something that's insignificant?
Nobody's interested in something that could've been done before.
So much in design is presented as a big miracle when it's just a repetition of what's been happening for 80 years.
The things I own are sacred.
In tech, people want an object for what's inside it, what it does. You need to make a defensive design that people won't walk away from. A chair is aggressive - you want a customer to choose it from many others.
I don't just want to create products. I want to reach into people's hearts and minds. I want to create memories.
I can't be boring. If people like my designs, then meet me and find out that I'm boring, they won't want my stuff.
If something is functional, you no longer think about it. I care about how meaningful things are.
A good gift celebrates the relationship between the giver and the receiver. When you open that box, you feel like, 'Wow, you really understood me.' At the same time, you think this gift could come only from that person.
We should make things that people don't want to throw away.
I have been a designer all my life, and design, for me, is to share love and trust and show the future in a beautiful way. I have worked on this principle all my life.
Inspiration has become this word that people tend to talk about as something from the outside. The truth is that... it is inside, like a burning fire: it is the feeling of certainty that your life has a meaning and you'll do something important.
There is always a reason behind things that are made, and if there isn't, there will be one when they travel through the world. The objects of beauty are used to impress, seduce, overwhelm, make money, support identities, and show power or style, among other things.
I think design is the expression of its time and culture.
I want to create a world with objects and surroundings that are human, more romantic, and less sterile.
As humans, we are not so rationalist as we think we are. I think our biggest quality is indeed that we are human, truly human: if our biggest quality would be rationality, we would lose our soul.
I have a long list of how people call me: 'The Prince of Design,' 'Beethoven of Design,' 'the Dutch Prince of Design' and the list goes on and on and on... and also the 'Lady Gaga of Design!' I am fine with it. I think she is an amazing character who has innovated the music scene and is respected by so many people; she is surprising.
Designers have been uncreative and very arrogant. They need to listen to people. People have always wanted more exciting, interesting design, but we designers didn't see it.
My parents weren't cultured people.
I like swimming. I like the beach. I like fast cars. I like speedboats.
What's special about Amsterdam is that the city is able to connect worlds that are not otherwise connected.
When I wrote my book about Amsterdam, the main objective was to talk about the city's creativity rather than just its design.
San Francisco is a lot like Amsterdam - free, open-minded and casual - though I expected better weather.
When I make chairs, they have legs; they can go anywhere in the world. Interiors are a different responsibility. A house is a representation of where you are, and it has to be right for the place.
The need to express yourself in Los Angeles makes the city so vibrant. If I lived here, it would be lovely to be in a cool new high-rise looking out over a city that is exploding.
Whether or not you like an object, it's the product of an individual person making decisions about things. That's what makes it interesting.
Function is fundamental to design, of course. If something doesn't work, it's a bad product, and I certainly get frustrated by things that aren't functional. But there has to be more than function. A house has to function, but if that's all it does, you don't love it.
I've always liked the idea of making things that last forever, not necessarily in the sense of being unbreakable, but more psychologically permanent. Most people throw stuff away not because it's broken but because their relationship with that object is broken.
We are buying stuff we know we don't need, and that is a problem we should face in design. It starts with creating an object that transports through time a valuable idea: that it can live forever.
Ambition is a beautiful thing.
You can go to any second-hand store and get an amazing piece - I have pieces from flea markets at home. You don't need to buy throwaway furniture.