Architects always have a feel for time - the generation they live in - as we do, and they are always striving toward boundless adventure.

I feel it is urgently necessary to train people who are capable of tackling the various problems we face today in regards to environmental turmoil and the relevancy of clothing.

Most of us feel some kind of uncertainty, with the population increasing and resources decreasing. We have to face these issues.

You see it in the many bouncing clothes that are not just pleats. To make them, two or three people twist them - twist, twist, twist the pleats, sometimes three or four persons twist together and put it all in the machine to cook it.

Technology allows us to do many things, but it is always important to combine it with traditional handcrafts and, in fact, use technology to replicate dying arts so that they are not lost.

Paul Poiret did wonderful things because he was so influenced by motifs, but Vionnet really understood the kimono and took the geometric idea to construct her clothes - and that brought such freedom into European clothes in the 1920s.

We can also cut by heat - heat punch. And we also can cut by cold - extreme cold. When you cut with heat, it makes a mark. With cold, no mark. It depends on the fabric.

To be honest, I think we should find first the possibility to make it. Research is first - if you're not interested, you never can find something. Many things happen from forgotten machines - ones that are no longer used.

We have to keep a very tight check on quality.

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 am not sentimental about the past. I like to think about what is next.

Indian paper is famous, Egyptian papyrus, Chinese paper... every country has used this natural material. But the problem is it's going to run out because it's very difficult work.

One of my assistants found this old German machine. It was originally used to make underwear. Like Chanel, who started with underwear fabric - jerseys - we used the machine that made underwear to make something else.

Retire? Never! We are far too busy!

I believe that all forms of creativity are related.

If you look back throughout history from the ancient Egyptians onwards, most cultures started making clothing from a very basic premise: a single piece of cloth.

My generation in Japan lived in limbo. We dreamed between two worlds.

Designers must be increasingly sensitive to our Earth's dwindling resources. It is our responsibility.

I suppose there are many, but I cannot imagine ever having a more perfect collaboration than that which Penn-san and I shared. It was based upon mutual trust, respect, and a desire to have our own work pushed to new places. And it always resulted in delight.

In fashion, you need to present something new every six months, but it takes time to study things. Development is very important.

Well, what I'm doing is really clothing. I'm not doing sculpture.

I very much like dance and dancers.

I have worked with several dance companies.

A great thing happening now in art is that artists are using the figure, the body, clothing, life.

I was always interested in making clothing that is worn by people in the real world.

I did not want to be labelled 'the designer who survived the atomic bomb,' and therefore I have always avoided questions about Hiroshima.

Indian clothes are usually tight.

I make clothing, and I don't care about trendy things.

I respect men and women who age and are proud and don't lose energy. I think fashion forgot those people.

Paris is an old and traditional place; it needs new blood.

The joining of the Japanese with the French should make a new movement. I think it should be good for Paris.

In the past, art was admired and revered from afar. Today, there is more of an interactive relationship between the art and the person who admires it.

There are no boundaries for what can be fabric.

I realised I wanted to make clothing which was as universal as jeans and T-shirts.

Frank Gehry not only understood my sense of fun and adventure but also reciprocated it and translated that feeling into his work.

I became a fashion designer to make clothes for the people, not to be a top couturier in the French tradition.

The future of fashion is light, durable clothes.

A-POC unleashes the freedom of imagination. It's for people who are curious, who have inner energy - the energy of life and living.

A-POC respects that there is a fine balance between the value of the human touch, which can be called artisanal, and the abilities of technology. I like to think of it as poesy and technology.

I am always looking to the future of making things.

Our goals must be to find new, environmentally-friendly ways by which to continue the art of creation, to utilize our valuable human skills, and to make things that will bring joy.

The combination of human skills with technology will always be at the root of any solution to the future of making clothes.

In the Eighties, Japanese fashion designers brought a new type of creativity; they brought something Europe didn't have. There was a bit of a shock effect, but it probably helped the Europeans wake up to a new value.

I am neither a writer nor a theorist. For a person who creates things to utter too many words means to regulate himself - a frightening prospect.

When I first began working in Japan, I had to confront the Japanese people's excessive worship for foreign goods and the fixed idea of what clothes ought to be. I wanted to change the rigid formula of clothing that the Japanese followed.

Men have been buying my women's coats for years.

I tried never to be defined by my past.

Many people repeat the past. I'm not interested. I prefer evolution.

I gravitated towards the field of clothing design, partly because it is a creative format that is modern and optimistic.

I never thought fashion was the job for me, because I'm Japanese. Clothes! That was a European, society thing.