Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When I say art influences me, which it does, it's not at all in a literal form. You go and see exhibitions or collections or meet an artist. It's all a compilation. Every moment, at all times, all this information. Then all this information disappears, and it shows up later in the process.
My designs are slightly subversive in their way; it can be in the cut or the colour, but they're always obtainable: they're not so difficult that a 40-year-old woman wanting to go to a cocktail party looking foxy and a little bit different in something well-made would be alienated by them.
I have always been drawn to designing fashions that are rebellious, like black leather jackets on suburban kinds, a corset dress, punk, blue jeans. I love that. Fashion changes all the time, and what is considered extreme or elegant or luxurious (or not luxurious) is changing all the time.
I think you have to humble yourself before the process of starting and running a business. Only the incredibly fortunate achieve their success quickly. Most people, it takes many many years of incredible hard work, and many periods of severe poverty, and it kind of makes it all the better.
In terms of any sacrifices at the time [of World War II], I was somewhat protected living on a small farm where there was food, different perhaps from living in a city environment. I know such things as gas rationing did exist, but it wasn't anything that interfered with my daily activity.
Becoming a fashion designer is agreeing with the fact that what you experience or what you see as free is also connected to a system. Does that mean giving up your freedom? I still don't know the answer. There's a very different kind of psychology going on in the fashion scene than in art.
When I went to England, to Saint Martins, I was traumatized, in a positive way. It was that British sense of transgression and the dark. Then when I went to Paris, I was doing couture, which everyone was saying was finished. Bullshit! For me, in the end, it was all a mixing of ingredients.
I'm always thinking ahead, and I'm always curious about what's happening next. I thrive on that kind of thinking, so I don't burn out. And I think that's a sign - if you can't stop thinking about your job, in a positive way that energizes you, then you're probably where you're meant to be.
For Fleur de Chine, I imagined the romantic and mysterious women from Asia's cinematic past-from the '30s femme fatale in a cheongsam and dark lipstick, to the'60s Hong Kong heroine of In the Mood for Love. I wanted to capture that fascinating, exquisite and slightly scandalous femininity.
I love the way people dress at the races. I love people dressed to the nines during the day. That formal kind of daywear doesn't really exist anymore except at the races. Also I love the tuffs and the working classes being so hand in glove and relying on each other to make the thing happen.
Clarity is the most important thing. I can compare clarity to pruning in gardening. You know, you need to be clear. If you are not clear, nothing is going to happen. You have to be clear. Then you have to be confident about your vision. And after that, you just have to put a lot of work in.
It was a different social structure. I'd go to [David] Bailey's for dinner at 10:30. There were always girls there and a house full of . . . I don't know, anybody. Cecil Beaton, Diana Cooper . . . And there I am sitting down with these creatures of the 20th century, and it was normal to us.
You make sexiness strong by balancing it out: something familiar with something unfamiliar, something masculine with something feminine, something streamlined with something rococo. It's a Yin and Yang. Women are made of layers, your mood shifts, no one is neither one extreme nor the other.
Fashions change and with rare exception are forgotten by the public. But the classic fragrances, like an invisible dress, endure. Fragrance must be introduced properly. A fragrance is like a signature, so that even after a woman leaves the room, her fragrance should reveal she's been there.
I think there's nothing more painful for anyone than unrequited love. If you've ever had that kind of physical access to someone and then, all of a sudden, that is denied, and yet you're still in love with that person, it's very, very, very painful to be around that person in a certain way.
I don't work for money any longer. I'm fortunate enough not to need to work for money, but I work for pride; I work because I love to work, and so the idea that one could lose control of one's own name and that things could be produced with your name on that you were not proud of scared me.
I certainly can't complain. I work six days a week, if not seven, and eighteen hours out of twenty-four - fortunately, with a great deal of pleasure. Why? Because I only do something if I want to do it; I need to feel a desire, to find pleasure in moving forward, creating, moving, inventing.
Like in great painting and architecture, in couture, to make clothes you must eliminate, eliminate, eliminate to obtain the true sense of a line. You see, the more you add, the more you load on, the more it's mad. You must try to have just the silhouette, which is an intelligence in clothes.
There will be gay couples; it will exist. It is not very nice that people who are married - who divorce in three seconds - don’t want protection for the others. The legal system should protect everyone, not just the few people who think they are above everybody else because they are married.
There will be gay couples; it will exist. It is not very nice that people who are married - who divorce in three seconds - don't want protection for the others. The legal system should protect everyone, not just the few people who think they are above everybody else because they are married.
We are very excited to re-launch the collaboration with Fred Perry. We have great appreciation for the heritage of the brand as well as their dynamism in guiding the brand towards the future. Their openness to create synergies between both our brands will bring interesting, creative results.
When I was young, I wanted to be a movie star. But I realized that you have no control being an actor. So I went to architecture school in NYC, because I was crazy about buildings. Then I began to realize that I got more excited about Vogue coming out each month than I was about my projects.
In America, there's a programme called 'The Swan.' They take 12 ugly people and call them 'ugly ducklings.' They spend six months and have everything done - plastic surgery, teeth, everything. And then they have this moment where their family is brought in, and they are revealed. It's scary.
The reason why I am proud of my part in the punk movement is that I think it really did implant a message that was already there. The hippies told it to me, but punk made it something cool for people to stand up for, which is that we do not believe government, that we are against government.
Today, fashion is really about sensuality-how a woman feels on the inside. In the '80s women used suits with exaggerated shoulders and waists to make a strong impression. Women are now more comfortable with themselves and their bodies-they no longer feel the need to hide behind their clothes.
The most important part of my work on The Orion Building was the creation within the apartments of living space which inspires people and the way they live their lives, whether they have bought a one-bedroom apartment or the penthouse. This building is beautiful to see, sense, and experience.
I didn't want to dress anyone in the beginning, no celebrities. Then, very slowly I started with one, two, like that. There are some celebrities whom we dress because they are part of the family. They are women I admire. I don't care how famous she is, if she is at the movies or in a concert.
The idea of the museum is to show my work since the start, and I wanted to show all of it, not just to choose between different pieces. They are grouped together in themes - minimalism, androgyny, black and white, graphic, flowers, and so on - from the earliest designs to the most recent ones.
I came to London when I was a year and a half for four years. Since then I have been back and forth. I do mostly feel like a Londoner: I enjoy the Angle-Saxon acceptance of difference and I feel it's more of an integrated society than most places. But this is in London, not the rest of the UK.
I like to be on TV when interviewers are good. I like it especially when it's live. When they can cut things, I don't like it as much. Sometimes they cut something and say, "Well, you would get in trouble, you would get a lawsuit." I tell them, "Well, I don't want my lawyers to be unemployed."
When I design and wonder what the point is, I think of someone having a bad time in their life. Maybe they are sad and they wake up and put on something I have made and it makes them feel just a bit better. So, in that sense, fashion is a little help in the life of a person. But only a little.
In fashion design, you can divide people into two groups. You have people who come with an aesthetic that is there forever, even if it evolves. Then you have people I call 'jumpers.' One season it can be this; the next season it's completely something else. I always knew I am more of a jumper.
I'd like to see fashion slow down a bit. What freaks me out about fashion today is the speed - the speed of consuming, the speed of ideas. When fashion moves so fast, it takes away something I always loved, which is the idea that fashion should be slightly elusive. Hard to grasp, hard to find.
My grandmother was probably the first person who I thought was beautiful. She was incredibly stylish, she had big hair, big cars. I was probably 3 years old, but she was like a cartoon character. She'd swoop into our lives with presents and boxes, and she always smelled great and looked great.
The explosion of museum exhibitions is only a mirror image of what has happened to fashion itself this millennium. With the force of technology, instant images and global participation, fashion has developed from being a passion for a few to a fascination - and an entertainment - for everybody.
The Bön texts are thousands of years old, and I am sure that not even 7 percent of what is still in monasteries, libraries and caves has been translated. Even without taking into consideration the spiritual aspect, Bön should be preserved as a treasure for humanity just for its cultural aspect.
The '70s were full of creativity. Everybody was so unique. It was a very creative period, and I think to be a designer you have to know a little about art and literature and music because there is inspiration in all of these things. You're looking for beauty but also something that makes sense.
The great thing about American women is their energy and the way they love to dress. French women don't really dress; they are too conservative, as it's always a question of money. In America, women are powerful and strong, determined. If they want to be an object, they choose to be in control.
When I was a child I asked my mother what homosexuality was about and she said - and this was 100 years ago in Germany and she was very open-minded - 'It's like hair color. It's nothing. Some people are blond and some people have dark hair. It's not a subject.' This was a very healthy attitude.
When I was starting out, it seemed like there were so many girls who were known by their first names, who were unique, who all had idiosyncrasies and characteristics that made them individual. Those girls stuck around; you'd work with them season after season. But now it's completely different.
I've met so many who have opened doors for me and remained in my life both personally and professionally. After a while, networking doesn't feel like 'networking.' It's both serendipitous and unpredictable, and something that just naturally becomes part of your work life and your personal life.
A woman plays such an active role in society. And today, the woman who influences fashion is not that very rich woman who sits at home and polishes her nails. It's the one who works, who is a doer, who does things by dressing. She's very strongly projecting an image of herself as an individual.
It was only when I got to high school and was in the art program that my artistic talent was recognized. The art program was directed by a wonderful and a very important person in my life - Charlotte Ranger, who was referred to as Mrs. Ranger. She had been teaching in the school for many years.
I think there were some programs but in those days art programs were kind of basic. You would do drawing and simple collage type work. But at home I was beginning to get interested in doing my own thing as well. I'm not sure what inspired this, but I became very interested in decorating things.
I didn't want to be thirtysomething and not know what I was going to do. I was quite afraid of that, there were quite a lot of aimless kids around, in that 'other' side of my life, who didn't really know what to do because they always had a bank balance to fall back on and they were quite lost.
I don't wear a lot of color. In fact, I don't actually like color on myself. I love color but it's very challenging, it's very powerful, it can overpower you. I think if my eyes were closed and someone put a red jacket on me, I would be able to feel that it was red. I don't feel great in color.
Women are objectified in our culture. And more and more, it takes a great deal of confidence, especially as a woman, to break the mold. You know, you're afraid that you're going to covered in a magazine as a "fashion don't." That's why you see all these girls on the red carpet looking the same.
I like first class, but I don't like first class people - I prefer the people in coach. I like fine restaurants, but prefer the taste of McDonalds. I like to be perfect, but I don't like perfection - I think it's dangerous. There is nothing after perfection. I know, I am a walking contradiction.
When I was a child, I was always nicking my mum's jewellery to wear, and I loved to drape a massive Chinese shawl around me from our fancy-dress box. I was obsessed with a feather and rabbit-fur collar from the age of three and attempted to make one with my friend, whose father was a gamekeeper.
I was terrified the first time that I had a big problem in my business. I was obviously terrified when they diagnosed me with cancer in 1994. I was terrified when my son used to drive too fast. But I do believe in the fact that fear is not an option, so I always try to face it and not be afraid.