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The blue-collar culture, it's not really a buttoned-up aesthetic. It's a heavy-labor thing because you're, like, sweating.
My motivation is, in part, a bit of angst that comes from feeling like I don't belong, that our generation doesn't belong.
I'm a kid from Chicago. I know what it was like to see Obama become president. We felt the tectonic plates of the world shift.
The most important message is to let me just focus on making the most beautiful normcore clothes, but as luxurious as possible.
'Creative director' is a catchall phrase for giving ideas. To me, it obviously means more than that. It's like being a counselor.
All I do all day is think of ideas and implement them. That's an industry, you know. I'm trying to make art on a commercial scale.
The whole point of collaboration is that you give and take from each other, and that's how you create things that are totally new.
I don't do the vintage thing so much, just because it's not me. There are some vintage designers I'll buy things from, but mostly not.
People, when they say 'streetwear,' they miss the central component, which is that it's real people; it's clothes that are worn on the street.
I have this overriding principle that streetwear could end up like disco: that it will be perceived well at the time but doesn't age well at all.
I don't have to choose between high fashion or streetwear. My brand reminds me that it doesn't have to fit in a box. It can just be in a gray area.
Music needs a visual element to make it tangible. So, naturally, there's gonna be a synergy between high-level art direction and high-level albums.
I look at culture, and I see what the kids around me are wearing, and I see a particular style. I understand the space between fashion and streetwear.
I was never meant to, like, work and then turn it off and sit on the couch. I just have a vision, and I'm inspired by it. It's sort of what makes me tick.
Graphic tees are vibes. And I think they're the basis of a lot of wardrobes, but that makes it challenging to distill what you're brand means within a T-shirt.
My general premise is not about selling clothes. If that's your end goal, then all of a sudden everything looks the same, you know - you start designing by numbers.
To me, graphic T-shirts are the most important and most expressive format for a designer or a person. Your taste in graphic tees says a lot about your point of view.
Big teams are absolutely vital if you want to achieve certain results when you're working on larger scales, both in terms of physical size and productive quantities.
For me, just as a social recorder of 2016, there's a new girl that emerged that can shop in between Zara and designer and still maintain a sense of her personality and identity.
From a very young age, as a teenager, I was into hip-hop and skateboarding and all those things that were akin to a kid in the '90s. All those things are what resulted in clothes.
I pride myself in collaborating and being a creative director, and creative direction isn't putting my opinion first. It's supporting an artist so they get the most out of the project.
For me, there's a subtlety in focusing on the right shape of T-shirt and pant. I recognise that it's boring, but the idea is to catch people off-guard and reward them in some valuable way.
For me, I analyze the modern girl, the girl that I'm friends with, and they're empowered: They pay their own bills. They have their own style. They wear clothes - the clothes don't wear them.
The concept with Off-White is that I have no ideal target. It's more about trying to make something for everyone. And I think that's what helps make it unique. That there isn't a specific muse.
For me, as I was growing up, I studied architecture, I was into music, and I always felt that there was a gap between the things that I loved and consumed and who made them and how they made them.
My goal was to tell a dialogue between high fashion and streetwear. So, the name Off-White, in my mind, is between black and white. So, that middle ground is a mixture between both genres of fashion.
There's a part of me that's trying to represent kids that don't necessarily have the same outlet that I have. I'm not looking towards a new demographic. I'm looking towards the demographic I came from.
I can come up with 30 T-shirt designs in a day, but it's just about where to slot each of them. That's streetwear to me. It's about knowing where to buy things, not this mass thing you can get anywhere.
If you look at why people become wack as they get older, it's because they stop doing the things they did that were formative to their work. You can't mentally stay still. You can't not challenge yourself.
Fashion and music are two great artistic forms that can be molded by the youth culture - our taste and our passion for evolving things in our limited time on earth allows us to look at things with fresh eyes.
My place in design history is to sort of interpret youth culture, and I think we've seen that done in fashion before - it's not a new concept - but it hasn't been done with the same vigour in a modern context.
DJing is my only peace of mind. When the phone is off, I play my favourite songs really loud for myself, and I'm not talking to anyone; I'm not managing anything. It's just, like, a time when I can listen to music.
Fashion is kinda a joke. I don't get too bogged down in the clothes. For me, it's one big art project, just a canvas to show that fashion should have a brand which has someone behind it who cares about different contexts. Social things.
It is an honor for me to accept the position of men's artistic director for Louis Vuitton. I find the heritage and creative integrity of the house are key inspirations and will look to reference them both while drawing parallels to modern times.
In my case, everything starts from Marcel Duchamp and the new expressive possibilities he gave us with his ready-mades. I transferred his artistic language into today's world, choosing, for example, to use pedestrian-crossing stripes as a symbol.
I oftentimes say that I design my collections off my phone. I'm in a group chat with my team in Milan. I copy and paste. I draw. I look at trends. I don't really have an assistant. It's a modern way of working. I don't know if it's sustainable, but it's how I do it.
All the skateboarding brands that I was into had graphic T-shirts. In the '90s, there were different styles that went along with the different influences in skateboarding, whether that be hip-hop or rock and roll and grunge. And that's what I was into, so I was following all that.
Take Tom Sachs as an artist. His brain is more brilliant than anything, so of course, anything he puts out over a ten-year period is going to continue to be super relevant. But if you look at some artists, they have one good idea, but unless you know where it's coming from, it's not going to be lasting.