Mr.
Simons, would you consider yourself someone that lives and breathes fashion?
How can I put this without being too critical?
I don’t have so many things in the fashion world that interest me. It’s
probably because I am so deeply into it. Often when you go very deep into
something, you also discover what it’s about and you understand it better. With
the art world I still have a lot of curiosity. There are a lot of things that I
feel attracted to and I don’t necessarily understand them and that’s what
fascinates me. In the fashion world I know a lot of the brands and the
designers and you start to be more critical and you start to have a very
specific point of view.
But
isn’t fashion such a significant part of your life?
The fashion thing is something I do, and yes
it is definitely also becoming a part of myself and my personality. It also
doesn’t really feel like a job either: it’s a dream or a passion or something.
I think there are things that I relate to more than fashion though, personal,
private things. Like my environment, my family, my friends, you know.
I’ve
read that the first fashion show you ever went to was Maison Martin Margiela.
You said it was so beautiful that half the audience cried and it had a huge
influence on you. Why?
Because that was the
day that I understood that fashion could also be conceptual and intellectual, that
it could be linked to a certain kind of social, psychological thing. That
Martin Margiela show was in a really trashy area in Paris and it wasn’t in a
building, it was in a playground from a black neighborhood. The parents had
agreed to do the show for the Margiela company only if their children could
come and see it. Everybody was expecting the children to just stay on the side
and sit with the audience, but they didn’t.
