Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When you think of the blur of all the brands that are out there, the ones you believe in and the ones you remember, like Chanel and Armani, are the ones that stand for something. Fashion is about establishing an image that consumers can adapt to their own individuality. And it's an image that can change, that can evolve. It doesn't reinvent itself every two years.
The greatest natural enemy of women is insecurity. We all feel it and we all think we are the only ones who feel that way. How we deal with these fears determines to a great extent how effective we are in running our lives. Most women present a façade to the world and keep the insecurity locked inside. The toughest job in the world is to be a complete, happy woman.
I always had a sense of people and would talk with them. I talk to my doorman. I talk to everybody I work with. I enjoy it. I like being part of a real life. I love dreams. I love glamour. I love being invited to great places. But I don't really care if I go, as long as I'm invited. I get invited to so many things, but I'd rather go have a hamburger or see a movie.
The key to longevity is to keep doing what you do better than anyone else. We work real hard at that. It's about getting your message out to the consumer. It's about getting their trust, but also getting them excited, again and again. My clothes.. the clothes we make for the runway.. aren't concepts. They go into stores. Our stores. Thankfully, we have lots of them.
I didn't know who Calvin Klein was, really. But Brooke Shields, we knew her from those incredible commercials - "There's nothing between me and my Calvins." I knew very little about American fashion then. I had no money, and Charivari was very educational to me. And Parachute. I was fascinated by those stores. I couldn't buy anything; I just went through the clothes.
My mom always said to us, "You cannot judge anybody because of the color of skin." There were a lot of African immigrants in Italy at the time, and people would not even say hi in the street. And my mom, she would invite these people to the house. This is what I got from my mom: to not judge people because of their sexuality, their skin color, their religion, nothing.
I think fashion is intensely personal. It should be. It should give a woman a creative outlet, it should give her a little bit of an escape, and it should give her a little bit of individuality that she can add to her life. I don't mean redoing your entire closet. I mean that a great shoe or a great handbag or a great top or a great coat or jacket can change everything.
There is a way of living that has a certain grace and beauty. It is not a constant race for what is next, rather, an appreciation of that which has come before. There is a depth and quality of experience that is lived and felt, a recognition of what is truly meaningful. These are the feelings I would like my work to inspire. This is the quality of life that I believe in.
I like to relax and lie in the water. It is the way I calm myself down. But every time I walk past my bathroom, I go in and I put on some perfume. I use different perfumes for different moods. If I feel that I need to calm down, I put on certain fragrances that are more sensual. If I feel that I need to energize, I put on something else. Fragrance for me is so important.
Cars are like children: It's hard to say that any one is more special than the other. There are little things about each car that you come to love, whether it's the look, the steering wheel, the way it drives, or even the way it drives differently when you put the top up. They all have identities; they have spirits and characteristics that are truly endearing in some way.
My first stage was couture. Boom. Couture. It has changed because women have evolved. Back in the day there were princesses. Today, there are still princesses, but she no longer rides around with horses and a carriage. She parties, she goes on vacation, she goes on boats. She wants to be dynamic. I understood this and I kept going. We do prêt-à-porter, men's, and couture.
It's so hard to actually find that niche for yourself. It's like when Nicolas Ghesquiére found Balenciaga. I hate to sound esoteric, but there is something about a house that leads you to that one chair, that one corner, where you just sit and feel comfortable. I feel very comfortable at Calvin Klein. My name is associated with it enough, and we have a fantastic team here.
Sometimes when I walk into one of my own stores, I look at the display and say, "This looks so good - I want to buy it." Yet other times I walk in and the displays and mannequins will be all wrong, and I don't want to buy anything. When a customer walks into a store, she's looking for inspiration. So I'm tuned in to people, and I care about what they need and who they are.
I think we are becoming more and more linked, and before long, we'll all be one culture. It's happening in every field, not just fashion. Actually, I think the only hope for peace is if culture is homogenized. Unfortunately, money seems to be the only solution to political disagreements. If we are all linked through culture and trade, it won't be worth fighting each other.
Fashion lives in the world of ideals; it is not necessarily grounded in the real world. The question becomes whose ideal it is. My ideal happens to be diversity. I love difference. I love change. I love experimentation and eccentricities. I like not knowing something and then discovering. Fashion can only reflect this diversity if we designers have an open and curious mind.
I don't think of myself as a brand, simply a designer. A fashion designer who is married to an artist and together we have woven a body of worth through the years - with hopefully a recognizable signature. I look forward to one day becoming a brand... But that takes a business structure with brilliant business people to run it. I do look forward to that chapter in our life.
As a young girl I was a real tomboy, only listening to myself. I carried on with this attitude even as a woman and when I first launched the Sonia Rykiel line, and said to women to remove their bras or when I designed sweaters with stitches inside out, everybody said to me that it was crazy and risky, but I ignored what they said and I did what I felt was right at the time.
When artists connect to a system because they want to make a living, it's their own choice. In fashion, designers don't have that choice. I know everybody mentions Azzedine Alaïa, but he's been going for a long time in the system - showing to people, selling to clients - and I think it's admirable how he's transformed it into his own system in a way, but it's still a system.
I think the biggest shift is the way people look at and have access to fashion. It's already old the minute you've seen it, and we've already moved on. Fashion has become very in and out. Back in the days when I started, you would wait for Vogue to come out, and that is where you would see what people wore that month. Now we are looking at what someone is wearing this second.
The idea was not to make a huge business, because the bigger you get, the more restraints I thought I might get. Number one was to do what I set out to do: make new and interesting things within the size of the business that is possible to do without restraints. The second goal was to do the business in order to achieve the first goal. That's what many people don't understand.
I think maybe that as time goes by there will be more newness but because I was part of what it was before it's not like coming into a house and saying it's all about me. I don't feel like that. It really is all about McQueen and the things that he was trying to say and about moving that forward, making it relevant, making it desirable, making it into what people want to wear.
London is one of the few cities where people still dress properly and fashion exists. Every day I see women who've thought about their outfits. They've picked out the bag, put on proper shoes. ... Do you know how rare it is in parts of America to actually see 'an outfit'? France? I don't want to be anti-French but there isn't a more unattractive group of people on the streets.
Retailing has become fiercely competitive. Today there are many large global fashion companies who have opened up mono-brand stores in major cities around the world. When I first opened my boutique in New York, in 1985, there were almost no other European luxury brands present with their own stores. Now Fifth Avenue is packed with huge stores from major Italian and French labels.
Choose something that you're passionate about. So for me, that's creating jobs for women who don't have a voice. I would like to be their voice until they're strong enough and on their feet to have their own and really be heard. The way that I can do that is not necessarily by hand-outs, because my hand-outs wouldn't be great enough to really affect change. It's by providing jobs.
I am very attracted to the United States. Why? Well, as a little kid from Southern Italy, not from a wealthy family, it was always my dream to go to the Big Apple. I'm not one to listen to classical music. I am very much for what is American, but I also prefer the America of the ghetto. I love the Bronx. I love hip-hop and R&B. I love electro-Latino, Latin music, that whole realm.
I have always been interested in conducting research that yielded new methods by which to make cloth, and in developing new materials that combine craftsmanship and new technology. But the most important thing for me is to show that, ultimately, technology is not the most important tool; it is our brains, our thoughts, our hands, our bodies, which express the most essential things.
Certainly a big challenge for me with evening-wear is to make it look modern and artistic and avant-garde. The very concept of a ball gown is not in itself a modern concept, and women need to wear that for a certain presence in Hollywood. I'm also aware that a starlet might go to more than one place that night so the piece could also offer, maybe not a revolution, but an evolution.
Craft takes time, and therefore it is luxury. You cannot do an amazingly well-made garment without taking time—not just the time it takes to make something but also the time it took the maker to come up with the idea. That is all luxury, and that has been lost because were trying to make things faster and faster, cheaper and cheaper. The consumer tends to lose track of what luxury is.
Peter Hinwood found all these old pictures - Polaroids - and when I saw them, I just didn't believe that the person in them was connected with me. I was in a hotel room with one of those front-and-back mirrors, and I thought, Who the hell is that? I used to be thin as a rake. I used to have the nice-shaped pecs. It's sad. No, it's not sad, it's the reality, and I've accepted this now.
I think the "trick" is you have to really want to do it. You're embracing more of the world. Which is great. We're all in the world together, you know? And the models in the show who are "plus size," they're not in a special place, they're not wearing differently styled outfits. They're just beautiful girls who are in the show, like normal. Everything's normal. That's how it should be!
I like the new shoe designers. Not all of them - there are really bad ones too. But I go to the colleges with these kids for lectures, as an honorary professor or whatever, and this Chinese girl I like very much who I give the award to says to me, "You don't know how much you inspired me to do shoes." And I'm glad that I convey that kind of desire to people when they see my bloody shoes.
For me, creating the clothes of Givenchy is the way to make my tribe. It's related to religion, too, because it's people trying to find identity - the young generation is looking for tribes. You have the hip-hop tribes, the punk tribes, the rockers, you have the hipsters, the bourgeois ... The fact of the tribe is that it's like a religion. Punk is like a religion, because it's a belief.
Color is a major element in scale. A small room can have a larger look by the use of closely related values, hues, and intensity. A large room can be made to look smaller by marked contrasts of color and value, hue, and intensity. Value is one of the most important elements. Whether light or dark, little value contrast makes for unity, and sharper contrast makes for stronger punctuation.
It's kind of hard when your moniker is "bridal" and "evening" for people to understand that I don't run around in a bridal gown all day, nor do I run around in an evening gown. I run around in clothes that resonate for me. I wanted to do those clothes in my ready-to-wear collection - because I don't know how you can be a woman designing for other women and not relate it back to yourself.
Spending time by myself is VERY important to me and I wake up pretty early, I wake up around 5 in the morning, and I get to have a couple hours to myself, and that is definitely I think really important to me and I think it's important for moms to have that too. And I love to carve out time for myself and sometimes I'll hang out with girlfriends, but i like to keep things pretty intimate.
I go to see the clothes [I designed] in the shops, and of course they're not perfect, and I see only the imperfections. But it doesn't mean it's a failure-you just think, I wish it could be better than this. Sometimes I cannot achieve what I really want to do in just one collection, so in the following collection I do it again. There are certain things I've been working on for three years.
It's more than just a dress; it's a spirit. The wrap dress was an interesting cultural phenomenon, and one that has lasted 30 years. What is so special about it is that it's actually a very traditional form of clothing. It's like a toga, it's like a kimono, without buttons, without a zipper. What made my wrap dresses different is that they were made out of jersey and they sculpted the body.
Generally speaking, I am not interested in the future and don't believe in it. First, I guess it is true that I don't trust the future, but, more to the point, I don't even trust the "myself" of tomorrow, nor, for that matter, of the day after. Basically, all I know, and all I am capable of understanding, is the "me" that is here, now, the "me" that has dragged his past with him to this point.
When I started, I had that naïve mentality that you shouldn't have to dress celebrities if your product is good. But when you're an emerging brand and you don't have millions for advertising and marketing, it's a good vehicle to penetrate the demographic that doesn't read GQ - or Interview. But if they see Milo Ventimiglia in one of my leather jackets in Us Weekly, that's a new audience for me.
I was the last one of nine kids - eight girls and me last - and my sisters were going out. They were teenagers. And as they were getting ready, I would sit on the bathtub and watch them put on makeup and transform themselves - you know, putting on clothes and giggling about the boys they were going to meet and everything. So for me, that was an amazing thing - the fact of transforming themselves.
I've been really into a light, bright playfulness that's been missing. I looked at these '60s and '70s photos of Jackie O. She went to Capri every summer, but she was always a little more playful, a little more colorful, than she was in 'normal' life. And it was exciting to see her a little bit "off duty." The colors are from awning stripe umbrellas, from a really clear ocean, and from ripe citrus.
I always love trying to put my arms around more people. As a designer, it's a great compliment when people wear your clothes or buy your products, so to do things that are more affordable and have more of a distribution is always very exciting - especially when I can still bring my personality in complete, heavy doses. It's not a diluted version of me; it's a very clear extension of my personality.
Your mind, in order to defend itself starts to give life to inanimate objects. When that happens it solves the problem of stimulus and response because literally if you're by yourself you lose the element of stimulus and response. Somebody asks a question, you give a response. So, when you lose the stimulus and response, what I connected to is that you actually create all the stimulus and response.
I think jeans have gotten away from the original meaning, that symbol of freedom; they've gone gimmicky and turned into a status item. Our denim is offered at lower price points for that reason. As far as the men's clothing in the collection, it's basically my wardrobe. I think men's clothes should be grounded, strong and classic. I like simple: a blazer, jeans, a low cut tee and maybe a silk scarf.
I never touch sugar, cheese, bread... I only like what I'm allowed to like. I'm beyond temptation. There is no weakness. When I see tons of food in the studio, for us and for everybody, for me it's as if this stuff was made out of plastic. The idea doesn't even enter my mind that a human being could put that into their mouth. I'm like the animals in the forest. They don't touch what they cannot eat.
First of all, I love women. But I lust after beautiful women in the way that I lust after a beautiful piece of sculpture - this will probably get me in trouble - or a beautiful car. I believe everyone's on a sliding scale of sexuality. There are moments where I am sexually attracted to women. But it doesn't overpower my first impulse; my lust for them is the same as my lust for beauty in all things.
Photography really is all about lines, and so is clothing. I worked for Oberto Gili for a couple of years after I was at ICP; we worked in fashion, travel, interior design, everything. I was inspired by his styling choices within fashion photography, and I think those experiences helped steer me towards fashion design. I love photography as a medium, so I think I will always take inspiration from it.
You look at the world situation, look at London, Paris, Italy, it is all basically the same as the U.S. Then you look at other places such as India, Bali, with warmer climates, you know the Southern climates, they are very different. I think there is a time and place for everything and in Australia, for example, it is completely the opposite. I don't think we can be designing for that customer per se.
I love hip-hop and R&B. People always say, "You are dark, you make dark dresses. You probably only love The Cure or Diamanda Galás." I love Diamanda Galás, but I also love Madonna, Beyoncé, and Courtney Love. They are all from different worlds, but they all evoke emotions in me. I am someone who needs emotions and needs to transmit them. If that weren't the case, I'd be better off changing professions.
It's quite strange in fashion, and it's probably the same with movies and acting - the big choice is between being radical, making a choice that will be more specific that will reach less people but will be very strong and very directional, and making a choice that will be more popular and catch the interest of a large group of people. Sometimes people are trying to push you in one direction or another.