“I like the idea of promoting alternative ideas of beauty. The fashion world can be very strict on the standards of beauty, and I like pushing it around a little bit. I like teasing those ideas a little bit, by promoting quieter kinds of beauty.”

“The irony about making a safe space for certain people is that it creates a wall for other people. No matter how inclusive you want to be, the more inclusive you are, you kind of create something exclusive — I don’t worry about it too much, though, because it’s a natural evolution, and it will all even out. The funny thing is that the further it goes, the people who felt included are going to feel like it’s too general and will reject it at some point, and so you kind of run the risk of, like, a love affair that peters out. I kind of assume that that is inevitable.”

“Maybe we need to become even slower and less available, which is kind of ironic coming from me, selling stuff all over the internet. It sounds a little hypocritical coming from me, but I don’t know if I want stuff to be accessible right away, because then that makes it just too disposable.”

“I am thinking about beautiful aspirations and beautiful behavior, and I have found that now, with the fashion shows, I am able to express that a little bit more than I used to. So now I can introduce ideas of, like, “What if we lived in a world without shame?”—when I have guys with their dicks out. Or, with women carrying each other, it’s taking a minute to appreciate those moments when someone is supporting somebody in need. That’s a very stirring moment that we can all appreciate as a beautiful thing.”

CHRIS WALLACE: Don’t you also go deep on Tumblr?

RICK OWENS: Oh yeah, I do. Totally. For a while there, there were some super-disturbing ones. Very, very dark and very sick, and I was enjoying those for a long time, but then I don’t know if I just wandered away from that or if it just kind of went away, as if the novelty ran out. They’re not as creepy as they used to be.

CHRIS WALLACE: Creepy how? Like, snuff?

RICK OWENS: Well, kind of going there. Nothing illegal, but just kind of sinister, creepy stuff. It was fun because it was lurid. There is a big lurid side to me. To all of us. I mean, nobody can deny that that’s a little bit titillating and exciting. It’s only human.

“Everybody would like to project a sense of strength and honor, so clothes as armor don’t necessarily just have to mean defense; they can also mean something a little bit more elegant. But it’s true, my clothes have become very sensual of late, and I don’t really know what that means. I don’t know if, 10 years from now, I’ll be able to figure out exactly what the motivation was. Maybe it’s me just softening with age.”