Fashion Designer Quotes - Part 2

When did fashion designers become the sages of our time? Their wit and wisdom now dominate some of the most popular Tumblr accounts.  Here are some of the best fashion designer quotes on the net:

One of the funniest new Tumblr accounts is Kor's Metaphors.  It takes screenshots from Project Runway and lists the Michael Kor's most scathing critiques.  Among the best gems:

"She just looked like rigatoni Mad Max"

"So she's a Snuggie designer?"

"She's borderline Teletubby".

"The blouse is just like a souffle that flopped."

"If the challenge was to make something for a 70 year old to go sit in a mall and get back to the house early so she can watch television, then you succeeded." 

Karl Lagerfeld (aka the Kaiser) has been to known for many sharp tongued statements.  That's why I am impressed with Karl Lagerfeld Quotes.  They have collected many of Karl's most inspirational statements as spoken from an artist.  Don't get me wrong, they haven't completely avoided fierce little quips...

"If you throw money out of the window throw it out with joy. Don’t say ‘one shouldn’t do that’––that is bourgeois."
"My thing is to work more than the others to show them how useless they are."
"Looking like an S&M fanatic without being one is grotesque."

He doesn't have a Tumblr, but he does have a Tim Gunn Twitter account.  Mentor to wannabe designers on Project Runway, he first started out as the education administrator at my alma mater, Parsons School of Design.  He has never claimed superior knowledge of fashion, and I love the fact that he lists "Educator" first among his many titles.  I also respect that he doesn't do the usual thing of pandering to the hottest personalities of current media:

"I just think the Kardashians have an absence of taste and I don't think that that should be perpetuated. I'm sorry I'm sounding like an old farty snob but it bothers me."

He called out Anna Wintour on having the worst Diva behavior by recounting something he witnessed: 
"I was with a colleague from Parsons, and we had been discussing the will-she-or-won't-she-take-the-elevator question, so we ran over to the elevator bay to see if Anna would deign to get on. She wasn't there. Then we looked over the stairway railing. And what did we see but Anna being carried down the stairs. The bodyguards had made a fireman's lock and were racing her from landing to landing. She was sitting on their crossed arms."

He was pressured to recount the story, and he refused, saying: 
 "Accept responsibility for your own behavior. If you're going to be carried down five flights of stairs, own up to it."

Always a good teacher:  “You can be too rich and too thin, but you can never be too well read or too curious about the world.” 

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Happy Birthday Andy Warhol

The most famous Pop artist in the world would have celebrated his 84th birthday today.  Before the iconic soup cans and portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol illustrated fashion for magazines like Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, Mademoiselle and Vogue.

His fashion illustration style included deceptively simple line drawings, often with a blotted line technique and bright, flat colors.  The style is seen in many of his most famous pieces today.  The artist also collaborated with others to design fashion.  His artwork was printed on clothing pieces like the paper dress seen in the Paper Fashion Exhibit at Luxembourg's Musee de l'art Moderne.  Andy Warhol also inspired many other fashion designers with his witty motifs and color palette.  Jean Charles de Castelbajac’s Fall 2009 show took this humorous attitude to heart with the furry Warhol dress:

He was influenced by fashion throughout his life, also collaborating with popular models of the day like Edie Sedgwick.  When he died, he was buried in the suit of his contemporary, Stephen Sprouse.

 

“Fashion isn’t what you wore someplace…It was the whole reason for going.”  - Andy Warhol

Paper Fashion Exhibit photo from Oranges and Apples.  Illustrations from the book Andy Warhol Fashion.    Photo of Edie and Andy from Warhol Stars.   Castelbajac Fall 2009 photo by Peter Stigter  

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Fashion Designer Quotes - Statements on Style

They create iconic looks, revolutionize how you see your every day wardrobe, or view the world through prestige-branded glasses…  These are the fashion designers who set the tone of the industry for the rest of us.
Here are some of my favorite quotes on fashion design from those who have defined it:


"Certain dressmakers desire to pass for an artist.  I have one ambition: that is to have good taste." -Jean Patou


 "The whole point of design is to make people feel better about themselves." -Geoffrey Beene


"When you see a woman in my clothes, you want to know more about them. To me, that is what distinguishes good designers from bad designers." "Fashion should be a form of escapism, and not a form of imprisonment." -Alexander McQueen


“You cannot do something just for the money. You have to do things you believe in and eventually you will make money." -Miuccia Prada


"Elegance is a physical quality.  If a woman doesn't have it naked, she'll never have it clothed." -Karl Lagerfeld.


"I don't want to compare myself to God.  I'm already a saint." Yves-Saint Laurent.


"Only in Paris do couture workers, from seamstress to mannequin, worship a dress and treat it like a baby." -Pierre Balmain


"I do not design for photographers and reporters". -Coco Chanel


"To show the relativity of what's good taste and what's not is something I like to play with. " -Jean Paul Gaultier


"There are three fashion periods: the past, the present and Mae West." - Edith Head.


"I would just die if I couldn't create a collection." -Valentino


"I don't pretend to do original things.  Dresses aren't creations. Since a dress was a dress, it had two sleeves and one skirt." -Diane Von Furstenburg


"The pieces of sculpture I create for myself in fabric attempt to find a certain resemblance to a rock in their purity, in order to obtain a kind of perfection." -Madame Gres


"The most erotic zone is the imagination." -Vivienne Westwood


"For me, haute couture is a necessity.  I never would have done this job were it not for haute couture.  It is a comfort, a security.  I almost feel it is our duty to continue.  Haute couture is France.  We have to keep all the skills and craftmanship alive."  -
Christian Lacroix

"Anyone who thinks designers don't talk to editors, and editors don't talk to stores doesn't know what's happening...It's called crossover, sampling all references in music, art and fashion." -Marc Jacobs

"Designers used to be notorious for coming in late, leaving late and taking long lunch hours. Not any more.  Today's designers work like hell". -Liz Claiborne

Happy New Year and have a prosperous, creative 2011!

Collage by Wendy Plovmand

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