For a feature in its March 2015 issue, ELLE US sits down with Dior creative director Raf Simons for an in-depth feature. Along with the interview, the magazine also includes an editorial spotlighting looks from Dior’s spring-summer 2015 collection photographed by Nagi Sakai. The 46-year-old Belgian designer tells ELLE about how fashion has changed in the last few years, and how he has come to terms with it.
“[T]oo much gets smashed in people’s faces. Fashion is now pop, where it used to be a niche. It moves with such speed,” he says, that “sometimes it leads to a lack of depth. The mystique is gone. Now being a fashion designer is like becoming a lawyer.” He pauses, then adds, as though this next thought is something he’s wrestled with and finally accepted, though just barely: “Fashion is overtly about commerce. That’s okay.”