Shame on anyone who dismisses the multibillion-dollar fashion industry as frivolous. As Miuccia Prada astutely proclaimed, she has long gotten over her feminist hang-ups about working in fashion because she “realized that so many clever people respect fashion so much.” So many clever people also talk about fashion. So with a mix of humor and earnest, we present the 101 best fashion quotes ever.
“How can you live the high life if you do not wear the high heels?” -Sonia Rykiel
“A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous.” -Coco Chanel
“I don’t want a politician who’s thinking about fashion for even one millisecond. It’s the same as medical professionals. The idea of a person in a Comme des Garcons humpback dress giving me a colonoscopy is just not groovy.” -Simon Doonan
“When I’m lying in bed I think about the next collection. That makes me sound insane, doesn’t it? That I’m getting into bed with David Beckham and thinking about clothes.” -Victoria Beckham
image: Getty
“I tell people all the time I want to be buried naked, because there must be a store where I’m going.” -Nan Kempner
“If you don’t wear lipstick, I can’t talk to you. You need to have lips — they are important for getting men.” -Isabella Blow
“People will stare, make it worth their while.” -Harry Winston
“Very few designers today design — it’s very important to be able to do your own sketch on paper and then explain [your vision] to the fabric cutters. Instead, lots of designers drape — it’s the new way.” -Valentino Garavani
“My look is attainable. Women can look like Audrey Hepburn by flipping out their hair, buying the large sunglasses, and the little sleeveless dresses.” -Audrey Hepburn
“When it is your time, it’s your time. There is no point in worrying about what you can’t control.” -Jennifer Fisher
“My biggest style regret is that I can’t fit into the models’ clothes.” -Donna Karan
“A woman is never sexier than when she is comfortable in her clothes.” -Vera Wang
“I always wanted to create a collection inspired by sports. I never played sports, maybe that’s why it intrigues me.” -Alexander Wang
“When I get dressed in the morning I think: why don’t I ever wear any of this crap?” -Robert Verdi
“When you don’t feel to dress means that you are depressed. You need a fashion shower.” -Anna Dello Russo
“What I love about jewelry is you can change it for something else without surgery.” -Joan Rivers
“When it comes to Fashion Week, I think it’s time to hit a refresh.” -Nanette Lepore
“Happily, women love me and buy my clothes, unlike Karl who’s never been loved like me!” -Azzedine Alaïa
“She [Kim Kardashian] was always my muse, now she’s become other designers’ muses.” -Kanye West
“I love attention, I’m very honest about it … [but] if I wanna wear a pink dress or a lace dress or a kilt of whatever, it’s like I’m not solely doing it for attention, I’m doing it first for myself because it gives me pleasure.” -Marc Jacobs
“Wearing a pair of yellow shoes does not make you an interesting person, that is of course unless you’ve just murdered someone in them.” -Simon Doonan
“As a fashion designer, I was always aware that I was not an artist, because I was creating something that was made to be sold, marketed, used, and ultimately discarded.” -Tom Ford
“Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.” -Oscar Wilde
“A woman’s perfume tells more about her than her handwriting.” -Christian Dior
“When we were growing up, our mother taught us never to have your belly button exposed.” -Mary-Kate Olsen
“Over the years I have learned that what is important in a dress is the woman who is wearing it.” -Yves Saint Laurent
“One is never over-dressed or underdressed with a Little Black Dress.” -Karl Lagerfeld
“I feel prettier with a naked face and ChapStick. But a good haircut makes a huge difference.” -Lena Dunham
“Every woman’s wardrobe should include black.” -Kelly Cutrone
“Personal style is attitude, attitude, attitude. It has to come from within.” -Iris Apfel
“A man should never wear shorts in the city. Flip-flops and shorts in the city are never appropriate. Shorts should only be worn on the tennis court or on the beach.” -Tom Ford
“I think it’s wonderful and important for there to be so much choice for customers. Wouldn’t it be such a bore if we all created, liked and wore the same thing?” -Anya Hindmarch
“My biggest fashion pet peeve is this strange idea that a lot of people have that to work in fashion, you have to be mean. You can be great at your job and be a nice person!” -Rebecca Minkoff
“Don’t be into trends. Don’t make fashion own you, but you decide what you are, what you want to express by the way you dress and the way you live.” -Gianni Versace
“A woman’s dress should be like a barbed-wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view.” -Sophia Loren
“You see me, I wanted to be fashion designer. I became fashion designer. So I think that everything is possible.” -Jean Paul Gaultier
“Girls do not dress for boys. They dress for themselves and, of course, each other. If girls dressed for boys they’d just walk around naked at all times.” -Betsey Johnson
“I’m so sick of mermaid dresses, trains, borrowed bling-bling, and a pose.” -André Leon Talley
“I think there’s something incredibly sexy about a woman wearing her boyfriend’s T-shirt and underwear.” -Calvin Klein
“I think the trick is, how do you spend time doing it but make it look like you haven’t spent time doing it? Over the years you look at women like Lauren Hutton and everyone says: ‘She just pulled her hair back and ran out of the door.’ I’ve been in fittings with Lauren and she definitely thinks about it. She just knows how to make it look easy.” -Michael Kors
“I’ll do shoes for the lady who lunches, but it would be, like, a really nasty lunch, talking about men.” -Christian Louboutin
“I realized that so many clever people respect fashion so much.” -Miuccia Prada
“The notion that a contemporary woman must look mannish in order to be taken seriously as a seeker of power is frankly dismaying. This is America, not Saudi Arabia.” -Anna Wintour
“I’m not really a fashion designer. I just love clothes. I’ve never been to design school. I can’t sketch. I can’t cut patterns and things. I can shorten things. I can make a dress out of a scarf.” –Kate Moss
“I don’t design clothes. I design dreams.” –Ralph Lauren
“Men tell me that I’ve saved their marriages. It costs them a fortune in shoes, but it’s cheaper than a divorce. So I’m still useful, you see.” -Manolo Blahnik
“Elegance is elimination.” -Cristóbal Balenciaga
“As far as I can remember, every dime I ever had went to something extravagant. I would rather spend more, buy fewer items and have them forever.” -Rachel Zoe
“Playing dress up begins at age 5 and never truly ends.” -Kate Spade
“The most important relationship you have in life is the one you have with yourself.” -Diane von Furstenberg
“Big girls need big diamonds.” -Elizabeth Taylor
“My mother was right: When you’ve got nothing left, all you can do is get into silk underwear and start reading Proust.” -Jane Birkin
“When in doubt, wear red.” -Bill Blass
“You have to stand up and say, ‘There’s nothing wrong with me or my shape or who I am; you’re the one with the problem!’ And when you can really believe that, all of a sudden other people start believing, too.” -Jennifer Lopez
image: Getty
“I like my money right where I can see it… hanging in my closet.” -Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City
“The best and the worst thing about fashion is that anyone can do it. But because fashion can be the most unintellectual thing, you have to turn it into an intellectual exercise just for your own sanity. You have to start with a concept.” -Joseph Altuzarra
“There is a real vulgarity in the way women dress at the moment. They show off too much and try too hard. They don’t understand where the line is between sexy and vulgar. I know where that line is.” -Roberto Cavalli
“You’re only as good as your last haircut.” -Fran Lebowitz
“Unshined shoes are the end of civilization.” -Diana Vreeland
“You can spend a dollar on a jacket in a thrift store. And you can spend a thousand dollars on a jacket in a shop. And if you saw those two jackets walking down the street, you probably wouldn’t know which was which.” -Helen Mirren
“Bridesmaids are never going to upstage the bride.” -Georgina Chapman
“I didn’t get there by wishing for it or hoping for it, but by working for it.” -Estée Lauder
“The best fashion show is definitely on the street. Always has been. Always will be.” -Bill Cunningham
“Fans don’t lie. They just tell you what they really think, and they see details that even people in fashion don’t.” -Nicola Formichetti
“I’m prepared to forget about money if it affects my creativity because, remember, I started off with nothing. And I can do that again.” -Alexander McQueen
“Fashion is more about feel than science.” -Pharrell Williams
“Clothes are like a good meal, a good movie, great pieces of music.” -Michael Kors
“My biggest satisfaction is always when I make something beautiful and well-done that I can see on a real man or woman – not only in the glossy magazines.” -Frida Giannini
“Life is hard. It is not too short, it is too long. But you have to learn how to live; you have to have a sense of humor.” -Carolina Herrera
“People want to be in their own fashion tribes, so they want to wear the same clothes to be connected to everyone else in that tribe. But they want to be different from other tribes.” -Christian Lacroix
“Fashion somehow, for me, is purely and happily irrational.” -Hedi Slimane
“Every woman in America has a French dream in her head, especially a Parisian one.” -Catherine Malandrino
“I have no personality, or I have three, depending on how you look at it.” -Karl Lagerfeld
“While working as a team, you push yourself forward and move outside the boundaries. It’s a great thing.” -Maison Martin Margiela
“Design is not for philosophy it’s for life.” -Issey Miyake
“Gaiety is one of the most important elements I brought to fashion. I brought it through color.” -Emilio Pucci
“I always say: To be well dressed you must be well naked.” -Oscar de la Renta
“I think there is always a need for pure design. With pure design, you don’t need so much decoration.” -Jil Sander
“The fashion world doesn’t know the word stop, so you have to make sure there are sublime moments every day.” -Raf Simons
“The hardest thing in fashion is not to be known for a logo, but to be known for a silhouette.” -Giambattista Valli
“Women dress alike all over the world: they dress to be annoying to other women.” -Elsa Schiaparelli
“The suit does not represent the businessman anymore. Nor does the loud shirt represent the rock star. The same man can now wear both.” -Donatella Versace
“Create your own style… let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.” -Anna Wintour
“Fashion is not about buying a second skin. Fashion is about having a fantasy.” -Alber Elbaz
“Ambition is not a four-letter word and women have to embrace that.” -Tory Burch
“Trendy is the last stage before tacky.” -Karl Lagerfeld
“We don’t need fashion to survive, we just desire it so much.” -Marc Jacobs
“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.” -Diana Vreeland
“The difference between style and fashion is quality.” -Giorgio Armani
“It’s not about ‘wear now, buy now’ or whatever. It’s about buy[ing] whenever you can buy it, whenever works for you, and wear[ing] it forever.” -Stella McCartney
“I believe in the semiotics of clothes. They send a message about how the world perceives us. For me it goes beyond clothes, it’s grooming. It’s accessories. It’s the whole head to toe look.” -Tim Gunn
“I need a lot of black on my eyes and a little shot of vodka to be brave, because you’re beautiful when you relax.” -Carine Roitfeld
“Whoever said money can’t buy happiness simply didn’t know where to go shopping.” -Bo Derek
“The real proof of an elegant woman is what is on her feet.” -Christian Dior
“Beauty is power; a smile is its sword.” -Charles Reade
“You have to walk like you have three men walking behind you.” -Oscar de la Renta
“Anyone can get dressed up and glamorous, but it is how people dress in their days off that are the most intriguing.” -Alexander Wang
“Design is a constant challenge to balance comfort with luxe, the practical with the desirable.” -Donna Karan
“I have often said that I wish I had invented blue jeans: the most spectacular, the most practical, the most relaxed and nonchalant. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity – all I hope for in my clothes.” -Yves Saint Laurent
“Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you bought some sweatpants.” -Karl Lagerfeld
“It sounds really corny but I think that if you’re beautiful inside it shows on the outside, for sure.” -Kate Moss
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