Raf Simons: Social Media is 'Bullshit'

Designer Raf Simons has some words of choice about your latest selfie. Freshly excused from the creative direction of Dior's womenswear, Simons is now focusing on his eponymous label, and a new collaboration with the interior design firm Kvadrat. In a rare interview with the Telegraph, the designer talked about the current social media craze, and explained why he only sees it as a fad:

"Everyone is paying attention to the wrong thing in my opinion," Simons said. "There's this huge debate about 'Oh my God, should we sell the garments the day after the show or three days after the show or should we tweet it in this way or Instagram it in that way?'... You know, all that kind of bullshit. Will all that stuff still be relevant 30 years from now? I don't think so."

The designer also spoke about the increasingly fast-paced industry and the struggle to adjust:

"When I started out it was a time when you could do that kind of thing without a structure but it's not possible any more," he says. "Fashion has become such a big thing. When you are just a kid from the streets somewhere you start slowly, maybe with just two people watching and then 10 and 50 and 100. These days that can grow really fast. Suddenly millions of people are watching."

So what would be the right thing to do, Oh Great Simons?

"What we should ask is will we have enough creative people who are strong enough and willing to do what is necessary right now to follow that madhouse. Lots of people are starting to question it. My generation especially is shifting now... like me and Phoebe [Philo], Nicolas [Ghesquiere] and Marc [Jacobs]. We've been around for 20 or more years. We know what fashion was and where it's heading to. Now it's a question of what we are willing to do and how we are going to do it."

The designer also opens up about his departure from Dior, which many fashion critics saw as premature:

"It is a very beautiful house and it was incredible to be able to take part in that heritage, but in the end it was just too much for me," he says. "Do I think now it was a mistake to go there? No, no. It was a fantastic experience and a fantastic time. I wasn't planning to go there for such a short period, but I was also not willing to sign up there for a long period. So it became complicated and I decided to get out. That is partly due to the system that fashion has adopted. It is speeding up and up. Every season I see so many things evolving at such a speed that I think certain creative people, including myself, are just not willing to do it any more. I don't want to. If you work on that level, you miss out on a lot of things."

According to the Telegraph, Simons doesn't exclude the possibility of taking another similarly high-profile position ("It's not like now it's only about small and niche because I do think it's interesting if your voice reaches out to the world.")

Is Raf ready for a big comeback? Read the full interview at Telegraph.co.uk