The 11 Best Quotes from Kanye’s Style.com Interview

Earlier this afternoon, Kanye issued unto us a two-word missive via Twitter:

please read http://t.co/iMQhPm3iRc

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 16, 2015

The rapper/designer sat down for a 4,800 word interview with Style.com, and read we did. It’s definitely not lacking his usual one-liner gems, but Kanye was also refreshingly frank about his influences, references and his talented team at Adidas. Whatever you thought of the collection, the entire interview is worth a read. We’ve picked out some of our favorite moments for the Cliffs Notes version below.

On the simplicity of his designs: “And then from my art background—from my heart background—I have a perspective on color that I’ve always wanted to get across… Even with the way we took Adidas socks and turned them into sports bras. It’s like, “What is almost like Alaïa that you can sweat in?” A sock! And it had to only be the sports bra because it looked really funny once [it] started going into the biking shorts. I tried that and that didn’t come out so well.”

On his relationship with the fashion industry once he started dating Kim Kardashian: “But soon as we started dating, fashion people were really opposed to the idea of reality stars. And all the relationships, the somewhat friends that I had somewhat built up, completely turned their backs on her and me.”

On his critics: “So anyone that’s out there that gave me a bad review on my first collection and felt that that helped me do better now, fuck you. You didn’t help me. You just talked.”

On his team at Adidas: “So now I’m able to go and hire people directly from Parsons, people directly from Saint Martins, and that was the key. These super-dreamers, these super-passionate people, these super-special spirits and souls—they were looking for a place to go.”

On the wait to get into his show: “Yeah, I apologize that people had to wait. That’s definitely not something I did on purpose. I actually had no idea what time it was. I wasn’t looking at the clock or in charge of that.”

On why he chose to begin the show with a voiceover about his critics: “I think that question is a little bit offensive…This audience isn’t on my side, anyways. It’s the fashion audience. They’re not even on their own side.”

On his interest in fashion: “You know, it’s like voting. Fashion is merely an opinion. And I’ve got a lot of opinions.”

On the people and his dinner table: “So everyone, the odds are with me. The people are with me. Now it’s up to you to choose whether or not I’m chic enough to sit at your dinner table. And I could give a fuck about your dinner table, by the way. I’ve got my own petrified Rick Owens table in my house.”

On the lack of diversity in fashion: “Racism and the focus on racism is a distraction to humanity. It would be like focusing on the cousin from your mom’s side versus the cousin on your dad’s side.”

On his influences: “You guys know my fucking influences. I’ve got four influences and it’s written all over the face, you know the combination. Just as much as Drake is influenced by Kanye West, you know my fucking influences. You see Raf Simons right there, you see Helmut, you see Margiela, you see Vanessa [Beecroft], you see Katharine Hamnett. It’s blatantly right there. I’m not going to try and act like I was influenced by a fucking dog walking down the street that broke its ankle that I had a heartfelt discussion with.”

On the future: “One of my dreams was to be the head creative director of the Gap. I’d like to be the Steve Jobs of the Gap.”

images: Getty