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.
Marc JacobsI've learned a lot about doing accessories and making shoes and handbags. I don't think my perspective has really changed. The subtlety of understanding yarns, what makes a fabric what it is - I've learned technical skills and more about the craft.
Marc JacobsThe attention toward me is basically because of what we've built as a company. If we built a pile of crap then nobody would care what I ate for lunch.
Marc JacobsBut the customer is the final, final filter. What survives the whole process is what people wear. I'm not interested in making clothes that end up in some dusty museum.
Marc JacobsI do think that in order for a company to be interesting to the investment community, there needs to be a plan; there needs to be a bigger retail footprint. There needs to be this idea - DNA, lifestyle, words I hate.
Marc JacobsSephora is a mecca for cosmetics, and it supports what I enjoy: You go into the store, and touch it, and try it, and love it. I've never bought anything on the Internet. I like experience.
Marc JacobsI 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.
Marc JacobsSephora's business is really smart and clever - I'm all for anything that gets people up and out and into the social experience of shopping.
Marc JacobsI 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.
Marc JacobsI 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.
Marc JacobsI 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!
Marc JacobsBut 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.
Marc JacobsSometimes 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.'
Marc JacobsI can remember years ago, when Kate Moss first came around and there were so many articles. Everyone was saying that it was heroin chic - that she was a waif, that she was anorexic. But Kate would eat just as much as anybody I knew - the media had just turned her into this thing. It must be really, really hard when you're the object of that.
Marc JacobsSofia 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.
Marc JacobsMarc 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.
Marc JacobsI 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.
Marc JacobsI 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.
Marc JacobsWithout any kind of real ego on my part, I just thought, I'm going to approach the people I admire and see if they want to do something together.
Marc JacobsI guess when I look over my shoulder at other designers, I feel like people are so definitive. It's so clear to me what their aesthetic is, what they're projecting. And I look at my own work and I think, Who could ever decipher what the hell is going on?
Marc JacobsI 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.
Marc JacobsWhen I started working, the big models were people like Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss. It was a time when there were models who had real personalities and individuality.
Marc JacobsMy grandmother was amazing. She completely believed in me and was very encouraging. She would go to the supermarket or the butcher or wherever and tell people, 'My grandson is going to be the next Calvin Klein.'
Marc JacobsWhether 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.
Marc JacobsIt 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.
Marc JacobsI'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.
Marc JacobsI don't want to sound too silly or pretentious about this, but, you know, I love being in Paris. I love working at Louis Vuitton. I love fashion. That's why I do it. No one's forcing me to do this. And nobody forces anyone to buy it. It's a real love affair.
Marc JacobsWhen you design a dress you ask yourself, would woman like it or no. It's much more of a creative process, not a research or trying to make somethings that sells or appeals. I hope that it will appeal to somebody, but it isn't what drives me.
Marc JacobsSex is always good, isn't it? Well, actually it's not always good, but it's always a good thing.
Marc JacobsThe red carpet doesn't interest me. I think people become all the same; it's like everyone posing from the three-quarter angle in some low-cut, fitted dress; it's all the same.
Marc JacobsSometimes I miss hamburgers, I should say that. I miss the tuna pizzas at Mercer Kitchen.
Marc JacobsI find people sexy, and I find personalities fascinating and sexy and appealing and charming. So a sexy girl wrapped in a sheet is a sexy girl, and an un-sexy girl in a low-cut dress is still an un-sexy girl.
Marc JacobsBut 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.
Marc JacobsMy mind absorbs things in a funny way. I'm on planes quite a bit and I always take stacks and stacks of magazines and I go through them and tear pages out and fold them up, and they get stuck at the bottom of my backpack or whatever.
Marc JacobsWhen I was starting out, it seemed like there were so many girls who were known by their first names, who were unique, who all had idiosyncrasies and characteristics that made them individual. Those girls stuck around; you'd work with them season after season. But now it's completely different.
Marc Jacobs