Marc Jacobs spoke to the interview site The Talks and said some fairly profound things, managing to make fashion seem, for a moment, a little less materialistic and jejune. Our favorites bits…

Yves Saint Laurent said in his farewell speech: “I now understand that the most important encounter in life is the encounter with oneself.” Have you reached that moment yet?
I feel I know myself pretty well at this point. I am still open-minded and still kind of curious and have a wonder about things, but I feel quite strong as a person and I’ve developed a certain confidence and a certain self-awareness. It doesn’t make life easy all the time, but it gives me a certain strength that perhaps took a long time to develop.

Is success a key to happiness?
I don’t know, I don’t know what the key to happiness is. Happy is just a feeling like every other feeling. I certainly feel happy some days and in general I am pretty happy, but I have all the other feelings as well. So I don’t know if there is a key. Maybe the Buddhists have it right where they just sort of honor all feelings and just go with the flow. And then I think you have no problems.

Can success and constant flattery be distracting?
Well, I just do my job. I’m not really distracted by it. Nice things are very nice to hear and it is flattering when one is given some kind of recognition, but none of that distracts me from what my job is, what it has always been: to make things. And honestly, no matter how flattering or even unflattering something is, it doesn’t prevent me from getting up and going to work and doing what I love to do.