Dries van Noten Quotes

Everything I do references something that influenced me.

What if Picasso had gone to the Moon? Or Andy Warhol or Michael Jackson or John Lennon? What about Coco Chanel? These are all artists that I adore.

There were three people I always wanted to meet: Michael Jackson, Muhammad Ali, and Nelson Mandela.

It's not like I think my art is inspirations from icons strung together. They're just sort of people who others talk about. I am definitely interested in the masters of different genres, they're talented and popular for a reason.

One of the things that helps me tell a story through music is to create a character. I have to have a muse, whether it's Frida Kahlo, Martha Graham, Marlene Dietrich, or Pippi Longstocking.

I'm inspired by many things, from landscapes to textiles. Art and architecture always influence my design process.

The history of art is the history of revivals.

Certain things you learn through exposure. It's really the elements which make up any artist. You really learn by example. You learn by influence. And some people have a huge impact on you, and that's how you become the artist you are.

If someone realises the piece they are wearing is inspired by me then it only broadens my audience.

Just like zillions of children, album covers educated and informed me, and certainly did I later transpose organically, rather than by intent, those principles both in fashion design and photography.

Before I was through my teens, I had been introduced and exposed to artists who would, in later years, become legendary.

A few of the influences on my career so far have been Isamu Noguchi, Irving Penn, and seeing the riots of 1968 in Paris.

I'm happy to be for people what Scarface, Ice Cube, and Rakim have been for me.

I love watching movies, and I'm very inspired by movies when it comes to songwriting!

Artwork, films, TV - it's always informed my work, no matter what I'm working on.

I'm very inspired by a lot of things from the past, from Cher to Diana Ross.

Music, art, landscape - these are all things I draw inspiration from.

I think what inspires me is in a constant state of flux...it's easier to stick to photographers and perhaps cinematographers, though the great medieval, Mannerist, and Baroque painters of Italian, Spanish, Flemish, and German origin are a constant source of inspiration, along with select modernists like Dali.

Every time I go to Europe, I remember that James Dean never saw Europe, but yet I see his face everywhere. There's James Dean, Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe - windows of the Champs Elysees, discos in the south of Spain, restaurants in Sweden, t-shirts in Moscow. My life was confused and disoriented for years by his passing. My sense of destiny destroyed - the great films he would have directed, the great performances he would have given, the great humanitarian he would have become, and yet, he's the greatest actor and star I have ever known.

I get my inspiration from books, pictures, art. I might find a vintage scarf and say, "I think this should be our color palette."

Fashion starts with fashionable people.

The Beatles meant everything to me growing up, and John was part of that. I loved Lennon's persona. He knew who he was and he knew what he represented to a worldwide public... I think he incited and inspired a whole group of youth to speak out and say what they felt.

I've been connected to the most culturally important albums of the past four years, the most influential artists of the past ten years. You have like, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, Nicolas Ghesquière, Anna Wintour, David Stern.

I wake the dead. I bring Jackie Robinson and the Roosevelts to life. Who do you think Im trying to wake up?

It is the artists of the world, the feelers and the thinkers who will ultimately save us; who can articulate, educate, defy, insist, sing and shout the big dreams.