When we started Nowhere, maybe the fashion industry recognized something was happening, but they just thought, Oh, those kids . . . whatever. They didn't know what was actually going on with us. Now we are those people in a sense - the current establishment. So I hope there's something happening that is new and independent that we know nothing about.

I'd been asked by Takashi Murakami to collaborate on something, which was an honor for me. I was really pleased. And then he had me as a guest speaker on his radio show, and we were talking about art. I don't think he knew I was interested in the topic - he was really surprised to find out that I own some original Andy Warhol and Gerhard Richter and Jean-Michel Basquiat works. So, in some ways, I think he simply wanted to see what I have.

I arrived in Tokyo in around '81. Around that time, I visited London for about two months - it was the period just before Malcolm McLaren released his solo album Duck Rock. I'd met him when he came to Japan, so I visited him in London and spent one evening with him and his girlfriend over at his house. He told me, "London is boring right now. You should go to New York." So he called a friend in New York, who I think was an old assistant or someone who helped him record early hip-hop stuff over there.

When I was doing Goodenough, I'd hired a few people to work in my office, but then, toward the end of the '90s, I decided that this is not what I should be doing. I didn't want to make a big company and have to hire lots of people. I felt like I was better as an independent or as a solo operator. So I made the decision to finish everything and work alone just with an assistant or two. Although maybe there isn't the potential that there is in having a bigger company, it's good for me.

I used to skate a lot when I was a kid. I loved it and was quite good. When I came back to London in around '85, I got really into skating again. But at the time, it had no influence from hip-hop. It was just thrash rock, hardcore rock, and skulls and all black - that kind of style. In Japan, the skaters were also strictly into rock culture, too, but I was coming from the hip-hop side, so for a while it was difficult to mix both interests.

Some of the bigger companies seem to be copying only to make money, which creatively is very bad. I sometimes wonder if they have any respect.

London has become really boring. I mean, years ago, London was really happening - there was swinging London and then punk. It was really different from other cities, and so I'd always wanted to go there and see what was actually going on. After that, hip-hop was the next thing happening, so to get the records or the proper clothing, you really had to actually go to New York. But now you don't really need to go.