I know this interview is supposed to be you asking us questions—but can I ask you one? (laughs) How do you archive your work? Do you keep one piece from every season, make a specific selection, or do you archive everything digitally?

At DESCNENDAT, we reuse past pieces in our projects, for WTAPS, which has been going on for 30 years, we archive everything digitally. What about you two?

We have a lot of personal things, but when it comes to work, we don’t really have much archived. I was actually surprised to find that there were no archives at JIL SANDER. It gave us a lot of creative freedom in the end, so it worked out, but it’s a complicated issue. Archives are beautiful, but they’re bulky, take up space, and can sometimes feel like a prison that traps you.

Creatively speaking, sometimes it’s actually better not to see the physical items. In your memory, they’re wrapped in the mood of the time—the emotions you felt, the atmosphere—so they often feel more meaningful than the actual object. Sometimes, “the memory is better than the thing itself.”

After all, people’s memories tend to filter out the bad and hold on to the good.

That’s probably true. Can I jump back in with another question? (laughs) Has your way of working changed since your daughter was born?

Before becoming a parent, I could work anytime, day or night. It wasn’t unusual to get an idea at 3 a.m., head straight to the studio, and work until morning. But now, time feels much more precious, so I naturally became more efficient. We make sure to finish work by 6 p.m. every day so we can have dinner with our daughter at home.
Interestingly, working fewer hours hasn’t meant producing less—in fact, my decision-making is faster, and the quality of my work has improved.

It was exactly the same for me when my kids were little. So, has becoming parents changed the actual output of your work? For me, it influenced my work so much that I even launched DESCENDANT. I think it’s hard not to be affected by such a big life change.

Absolutely. It’s hard to put into words, but having a child changed how I perceive the world and everyday life, and that shift naturally shows up in my work. As directors, our role is to shape and express how we want things to be or feel. That expression is influenced by our mood, the state of the world, and the people around us. So, becoming a parent naturally becomes part of your creative voice. You don’t have to consciously decide to “deliver this," it just comes through naturally.

It’s abstract, but if I had to put it into words, I’d say “I started expressing myself with the future our children will live in mind.” Even unconsciously.

That’s right. And over the past few years, both of my parents passed away, which made me think even more about my daughter’s future after I’m gone. What kind of world will she live in? How will she navigate it?
When I was younger, I didn’t care much about society—I was focused only on the small world around me. But now, through my child, my perspective has naturally shifted toward the future. It’s impossible not to think about the global environment and broader issues.

As people who make clothes, we don’t want to create anything wasteful—we want to act wisely and responsibly for the planet. Even if that message isn’t directly visible in the work, starting with the mindset of “creating something meaningful” is what really matters.

I always want to stay conscious. These days, that might even be a new kind of “underground” way of living. A lot of people avoid thinking about the future, so even having the desire to say, “Let me try to make things better,” can feel anti-mainstream, almost like an act of rebellion. In a way, the more we focus on the future, the more we find ourselves moving toward counterculture.

I totally get that—that feeling is exactly what led me to start STUMP. We live in different places, speak different languages, and don’t talk about these things often, yet it’s amazing how much our thinking aligns.

Cultures that seek to understand the world can transcend national and environmental boundaries. And instead of clinging to the past, I think it’s more meaningful to focus on “tomorrow.” Everything we’ve done and been drawn to up until now has shaped how we see the world—but as parents and creators, maybe it’s time to use that perspective to help shape the future.

And I always want to think about the future in a positive light.