Elegance isn’t solely defined by what you wear. It’s how you carry yourself, how you speak, what you read. We have got to change our ethics and our financial system and our whole way of understanding the world. It has to be a world in which people live rather than die a sustainable world.I didn’t want to be a fashion designer, and for a good half of my career I didn’t like it. I always wanted to do other things. Age and size are only numbers. It’s the attitude you bring to clothes that make the difference. Everything I do is a matter of heart, body and soul.
I still appreciate individuality. Style is much more interesting than fashion, really. Attitude is everything. It’s really easy to get colors right. It’s really hard to get black – and neutrals – right.
We must never confuse elegance with snobbery.
Never in my wildest dreams did I entertain the idea that I would become a fashion designer. I am no longer concerned with sensation and innovation, but with the perfection of my style.
I am no longer concerned with sensation and innovation, but with the perfection of my style. I’ve treated the waistcoat as if it were a corset, so that it becomes the first layer in the process of putting clothes on the body.
There is constant motion between layering and revealing.
I didn’t consider myself a fashion designer at all at the time of punk. I was just using fashion as a way to express my resistance and to be rebellious.
It was my ambition to understand the world I live in. I get ideas about what’s essential when packing my suitcase. Elegance isn’t solely defined by what you wear. It’s how you carry yourself, how you speak, what you read. I think it’s an old fashioned notion that fashion needs to be exclusive to be fashionable. I am no longer concerned with sensation and innovation, but with the perfection of my style.
You’re only as good as your last collection, which is an enormous pressure. Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future.
Attitude is everything. You have a more interesting life if you wear impressive clothes. I wanted to dress the woman who lives and works, not the woman in a painting. My dresses are very reasonably priced, for dresses that are cut on the body.
When I was young, I lived like an old woman, and when I got old, I had to live like a young person. I always thought what you wore underneath was as important as what you wear on top.
Beauty is perfect in its imperfections, so you just have to go with the imperfections. War taught me that not everything is glamorous. I didn’t want to be a fashion designer, and for a good half of my career I didn’t like it. I always wanted to do other things.
We must never confuse elegance with snobbery. Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity. Design and style should work toward making you look good and feel good without a lot of effort so you can get on with the things that matter. I’m an accomplice to helping women get what they want. I never like to think that I design for a particular person. I design for the woman I wanted to be, the woman I used to be, and – to some degree – the woman I’m still a little piece of.
Fashion is always of the time in which you live. To make women look young. Then their outlook changes. They feel more joyous. I am no longer concerned with sensation and innovation, but with the perfection of my style.
Doing collections, doing fashion is like a non-stop dialogue. I would like to be a one-man multinational fashion phenomenon. Awkwardness gives me great comfort. I’ve never been cool, but I’ve felt cool. I’ve been in the cool place, but I wasn’t really cool – I was trying to pass for hip or cool. It’s the awkwardness that’s nice.
I am no longer concerned with sensation and innovation, but with the perfection of my style. You have a more interesting life if you wear impressive clothes. I’ve always thought of the T-shirt as the Alpha and Omega of the fashion alphabet.
Design and style should work toward making you look good and feel good without a lot of effort so you can get on with the things that matter. Sometimes the simplest things are the most profound. Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.
“Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.”
