Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
This is a great shame, but of course there have to be some things in life that not everybody can have, and great perfume is one of them.
This is a weakness of the world. Someone thinks they've discovered something for the first time. They want to be authoritative about it.
Balenciaga was incredibleI was madly infatuated with his clothes. His clothes were devastating. One fainted. One simply blew up and died.
You gotta have style. It helps you get down the stairs. It helps you get up in the morning. It's a way of life. Without it, you're nobody.
When fashion turns over it brings in little tiny creaks and cracks. This is the fascination and that is where you have to watch every step.
When I arrived in America, I had these very dark red nails which some people objected to, but then some people object to absolutely everything.
Balenciaga often said that women did not have to be perfect or beautiful to wear his clothes. When they wore his clothes, they became beautiful.
For goodness sakes, beware of curls… It is a great art to do them so that the girls not only look modern - but do not suddenly look very vulgar.
The first rule that a geisha is taught, at the age of nine, is to be charming to other women...Every girl in the world should have geisha training.
Red is the great clarifier - bright and revealing. I can't imagine becoming bored with red - it would be like becoming bored with the person you love.
I always say I hope to God I die in a town with a good tailor, a good shoemaker, and perhaps someone who's interested in a little quelque chose d'autre.
There was a time when it was considered vulgar and unnecessary to pursue money, but today anyone who doesn't believe in money must be out of their minds!
A lie to get out of something, or take an advantage for oneself, that’s one thing; but a lie to make life more interesting—well, that’s entirely different.
The two greatest mannequins of the century were Gertrude Stein and Edith Sitwell - unquestionably. You just couldn't take a bad picture of those two old girls
I never felt comfortable about my looks until I married Reed Vreeland. I believe in love at first sight because that's what it was. I knew the moment our eyes met that we would marry.
Fashion is part of the daily air and it changes all the time, with all the events. You can even see the approaching of a revolution in clothes. You can see and feel everything in clothes.
I'm a person who is only invested in the pleasures and enjoyments of life. All the rest is left to the men. I've always remained what you might call "feminine" about the whole [work] thing.
A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika. We all need a splash of bad taste-it's hearty, it's healthy, it's physical. I think we could use more of it. No taste is what I'm against.
I think when you’re young you should be a lot with yourself and your sufferings. Then one day you get out where the sun shines and the rain rains and the snow snows and it all comes together.
Vogue always did stand for people's lives. I mean, a new dress doesn't get you anywhere; it's the life you're living in the dress, and the sort of life you had lived before, and what you will do in it later.
Beauty has nothing to do with possession. If possession and beauty must go together, then we are lost souls. A beautiful flower is not to be possessed, it's there to be beheld. It's there for your pleasure.
Where Chanel came from in France is anyone’s guess. She said one thing one day and another thing the next. She was a peasant—and a genius. Peasants and geniuses are the only people who count and she was both.
You know the greatest thing is passion, without it what have you got? I mean if you love someone you can love them as much as you can love them but if it isn’t a passion, it isn’t burning, it isn’t on fire, you haven’t lived.
One thing I hold against Americans is that they have no flair for the rain. They seem unsettled by it; it's against them: they take it as an assault, an inconvenience! But rain is so wonderfully cleansing, so refreshing, so calming...
Allure is a word very few people use nowadays, but it's something that exists. Allure holds you, doesn't it? Whether it's a gaze or a glance in the street or a face in the crowd or someone sitting opposite you at lunch... you are held
All people are meant to be creative in a certain way. What way? Perhaps I was cut out to be a wonderful housewife, with a marvelous sense of cooking, being with my friends, running a perfect house. But I am not ambitious towards anything.
The best time to leave a party is when the party’s just beginning. There’s no drink that kills except the drink that you didn’t want to take, as the saying goes, and there’s no hour that kills except the hour you stayed after you wanted to go home.
A funny person is funny only for so long, but a wit can sit down and go on being spellbinding forever. One is not meant to laugh. One stays quiet and marvels. Spontaneously witty talk is without question the most fascinating entertainment there is.
Why don't you have a room done up in every color green? This will take months, years, to collect, but it will be delightful-a melange of plants, green glass, green porcelains, and furniture covered in sad greens, gay greens, clear, faded, and poison greens?
I think laying out a beautiful picture in a beautiful way is a bloody bore. I think you've got to blow it right across the page and down the side, crop it, cut it in half, combine it with something else... do something with it. You've got to make something out of it.
If you had a bump on your nose, it made no difference so long as you had a marvelous body & good carriage. You held your head high, & you were a beauty You knew how to water-ski, & how to take a jet plane fast in the morning, arrive anywhere, & be anyone when you got off.
I think part of my success as an editor came from never worrying about a fact, a cause, an atmosphere. It was me—projecting to the public. That was my job. I think I always had a perfectly clear view of what was possible for the public. Give ‘em what they never knew they wanted.
I wonder about prisoners. They're told, "You are free, you are innocent, you can go anywhere." I'm sure they usually feel nothing. They don't burst into tears or hysterics or joy or "I told you so." It's nothing. To be on the straight path isn't a bloody thing. It's just ordinary.
Don't you loathe the word "workaholic"? It has nothing to do with an important thing, that you and your secretary are at the office until 6:30. But that's life, kiddo. 24-hour work doesn't go on in America. 24-hour work is what Italy and Holland did after the war. The lights never went out!
A good photograph was never what I was looking for. I like to have a point. I had to have a point or I didn't have a picture. This is what I've always found so fascinating about paparazzi pictures. They catch something unintended, on the wing... they get that thing. It's the revelation of personality.
All my life I’ve pursued the perfect red. I can never get painters to mix it for me. It’s exactly as if I’d said, ‘I want rococo with a spot of Gothic in it and a bit of Buddhist temple’—they have no idea what I’m talking about. About the best red is to copy the color of a child’s cap in any Renaissance portrait.
I sincerely believe that energy grows from itself and the more energy you expand the more you create within yourself. I also believe that energy is habit -- which can be created quite easily. In other words, use your energy and more energy flows and then it is very hard to stop it -- as if one would ever want to!
God was fair to the Japanese. He gave them no oil, no coal, no diamonds, no gold, no natural resources — nothing! Nothing comes from the island that you can sustain a civilization on. What God gave the Japanese was a sense of style—maintained through the centuries through hard work and the disciplines of ambition.
I was always fascinated by the absurdities and luxuries and the snobbism of the world that fashion magazines showed. Of course, it’s not for everyone...But I lived in that world, not only during my years in the magazines business but for years before, because I was always of that world-- at least in my imagination.
I don't think anyone has ever been in a better place at a better time than I was when I was editor of Vogue. Vogue always did stand for people's lives. I mean, a new dress doesn't get you anywhere; it's the life you're living in the dress, and the sort of life you had lived before, and what you will do in it later. Like all great times, the sixties were about personalities.
One is born with good taste. It's very hard to acquire. You can acquire the patina of taste. But what Elsie Mendl had was something else that's particularly American––an appreciation of vulgarity. Vulgarity is a very important ingredient in life. I'm a great believer in vulgarity––if it's got vitality. A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika. We all need a splash of bad taste––it's hearty, it's healthy, it's physical. I think we could use more of it. No taste is what I'm against.