Rei Kawakubo Quotes

Since I was in my early twenties, at ABC, I was always only interested in things that were not already being done.

If your idea is truly innovative, you're going to hear from the naysayers. After all, if it really were such a good idea, someone would have already done it, right?

If I do something I think is new, it will be misunderstood, but if people like it, I will be disappointed because I haven't pushed them enough. The more people hate it, maybe the newer it is. Because the fundamental human problem is that people are afraid of change. The place I am always looking for-because in order to keep the business I need to make a little compromise between my values and customers' values-is the place where I make something that could almost-but not quite-be understood by everyone.

I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you're going to innovate.

What really excites me in a project is when it goes in a way you haven't been before.

If your goal is to change the world, you can't start by doing things the same old way because it sells better.

When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you you're nuts.

If you're not doing something different, you're not doing anything.

New ideas that fly in the face of conventional wisdom of the day are always greeted with doubt and scorn, even fear.

My goal isn't to be one of the best; it's to change the game, to change the way things work.

We must be alarmingly enterprising, and we must be startlingly original, and do new and striking things which constitute a revolution.

Whatever you do, don't play it safe. Don't do things the way they've always been done. Don't try to fit the system. If you do what's expected of you, you'll never accomplish more than others expect.

I almost feel like its an obligation to not further the status quo if you become somebody with influence and exposure. I dont want to paint the same painting again. I dont want to make the same sculpture again. Why shouldnt a big movie studio be able to make those small independent kinds of pictures? Why not change it up?

I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past.

To innovate is not to reform.

If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative.

The more original something is, the more of a threat it seems until the people catch up with it. That happened with Thelonious Monk. It happened with anybody who is really original.

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

People are afraid of changing; that they're losing something. They don't understand that they are also gaining something.

For any new technology there is always controversy and there always some fear associated with it. I think that's just the price of being first sometimes.

You look at any industry - you're not innovating unless people are questioning it. If you're innovating, you're doing something nobody's done before, which means you're re-writing rules, resetting boundaries, re-creating systems. And that means the traditional industry is going to question it.

When you create something new, you're breaking tradition - which is an act of defiance.

If the idea is really new and unique and big, other people will all think it is bad and is going to fail.

No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law.

Innovation never comes from the established institutions.