If you have total freedom to design, you won't get anything interesting. So I give myself restraints in order to kind of push myself through, to create something new. It's the torture that I give myself, the pain and the struggle that I go through. So it's self-given, but that's the only way, I think, to make a strong, good new creation.

In Comme des Garçons, I hardly do any sketches; there's no fittings on bodies, there's no models that come in and say, "Oh, a little bit like this." In the beginning, there isn't even a theme. It's like getting the whole world at your feet - to empty your mind of everything that's ever happened before, to get an empty space.

If you have total freedom to design, you won't get anything interesting. So I give myself restraints in order to kind of push myself through, to create something new. It's the torture that I give myself, the pain and the struggle that I go through. So it's self-given, but that's the only way, I think, to make a strong, good new creation.

I identified very much with punk, not only in the fashion sector, but in every other sector. The very nature of doing something new and free meant something that was against authority.

I don't feel too excited about fashion today People just want cheap fast clothes and are happy to look like everyone else

I've always said that growing up in postwar Japan, I never felt any connection to my work through those experiences. The work I do really comes from inside myself. For me, being born in Japan was an accident.

The freedom I give myself for the business is in deciding to take part in the Paris collections, but also having other retail strategies that are unlike anybody else's. Not necessarily going into malls, doing the business my own way - having different brands to cover different concepts, to be able to have the cash flow to carry on.