In a world full of Crocs, be Gucci. Was this a fashion quote you were looking for? No? Thank goodness, because we will not make fun of Crocs here. All jokes aside, don't worry. This is exactly the page you were looking for. Whether you are a fashion design student, a personal shopper, a tailor, a fashion connoisseur, or Stella McCartney herself, prepare to get the creative juices flowing after reading some of the best quotes about fashion from world-famous fashion designers, models, aficionados, or even fictional film characters.
But before we delve into the extensive list of fashion quotes, should we dig into the fashion industry and what fashion really means to society? Yes, we shall. According to Fashion United, the global fashion industry's value is around 3 trillion dollars. To help make sense of that number, imagine seven of Jeff Bezos and their net worth combined. That's a lot of moolah, but not nearly enough to cover America's federal debt. *insert grimace face emoji here* But let's not worry about that. For now, at least. Fashion isn't all about expensive designer garments and catwalks with models wearing pieces one can never afford.
Among the myriad of fashion designer quotes, one famous quote by the head designer of Prada resonates very well with us today: "What you wear is how you present yourself to the world, especially today when human contacts are so quick." Miuccia Prada meant that fashion is a form of self-expression, an "instant language." And although current fashion trends might make it seem as if we must follow what's hot or trending and all dress like the mannequins in window displays, fashion isn't really about that. Do you know which famous designer said, "Don't be into trends"? If not, you will be pleasantly surprised.
To find out whose famous words those were and for many more style quotes or quotes by famous people, scroll below for a lengthy list we assembled from the internet galore. Also, let us know your favorite famous quote from a fashion designer!
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“People will stare. Make it worth their while.” – Harry Winston
"Fashion you can buy, but style you possess. The key to style is learning who you are, which takes years. There's no how-to road map to style. It's about self expression and, above all, attitude." — Iris Apfel
"I think there is beauty in everything. What 'normal' people perceive as ugly, I can usually see something of beauty in it." — Alexander McQueen
"A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika. We all need a splash of bad taste—it's hearty, it's healthy, it's physical. I think we could use more of it. No taste is what I'm against." — Diana Vreeland
“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
"Fashion is what you're offered four times a year by designers. And style is what you choose." — Lauren Hutton
"Fashion is about dressing according to what’s fashionable. Style is more about being yourself." — Oscar de la Renta
"Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they notice the woman."— Coco Chanel
“If I can have any impact, I want women to feel good about themselves and have fun with fashion.” – Michelle Obama
"Over the years I have learned that what is important in a dress is the woman who is wearing it." — Yves Saint Laurent
"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
"What I really do believe is that anybody—and it really doesn't matter what shape your body is—can be seductive and sexy and gorgeous and beautiful. I use an extreme idea of beauty as a way of showing Céline, but I don't believe it has to be like that outside of the fashion show." — Phoebe Philo
"Fashion as we knew it is over; people wear now exactly what they feel like wearing." – Mary Quant
“It pains me physically to see a woman victimized, rendered pathetic by fashion.” – Yves Saint Laurent
“Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street; fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening." – Coco Chanel
“Style is very personal. It has nothing to do with fashion. Fashion is over quickly. Style is forever.” – Ralph Lauren
“Real style is never right or wrong. It’s a matter of being yourself on purpose.” – G. Bruce Boyer
“I don’t believe in fashion. I believe in costume. Life is too short to be the same person every day.” – Stephanie Perkins
“Style is very important. It has nothing to do with fashion. Fashion is over quickly. Style lasts forever.” – Ralph Lauren
"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 to live." — Gianni Versace
"Style is something each of us already has, all we need to do is find it." — Diane von Furstenberg
"You can never take too much care over the choice of your shoes. Too many women think that they are unimportant, but the real proof of an elegant woman is what is on her feet." — Christian Dior
"Style is the only thing you can’t buy. It’s not in a shopping bag, a label, or a price tag. It’s something reflected from our soul to the outside world—an emotion.” — Alber Elbaz
"To wear dreams on one's feet is to begin to give a reality to one's dreams." — Roger Vivier
"I think we all know boldness when we see it. Nothing makes me smile more than when I see someone being fully themselves, with their own individual style and character, whatever that is." — Angelina Jolie
"I think our bodies are beautiful, and I think celebrating them and being comfortable in them—no matter what age you are—is important. There shouldn't be any kind of shame or discomfort around it." — Jennifer Aniston
"As a woman gets older, it's more about style than fashion. A woman knowing herself more and more, and looking for new things, is getting into her own personal style, being more than just a fashion addict. I'm interested in that." — Nicolas Ghesquière
“When you hear designers complaining about the challenge of their profession, you have to say: Don’t get carried away—it’s only dresses.” – Karl Lagerfeld
“Fashion is not necessarily about labels. It’s not about brands. It’s about something else that comes from within you.” – Ralph Lauren
“Too much good taste can be very boring. Independent style, on the other hand, can be very inspiring.” – Diana Vreeland
“I’ve always thought of accessories as the exclamation point of a woman’s outfit.” – Michael Kors
"You can wear black at any time. You can wear it at any age. You may wear it for almost any occasion." — Christian Dior
"When you don’t dress like everyone else, you don’t have to think like everyone else."—Iris Apfel
"What you wear is how you present yourself to the world, especially today, when human contacts are so quick. Fashion is instant language." — Miuccia Prada
"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. Without it, you’re nobody. I’m not talking about lots of clothes.” — Diana Vreeland
"The dress must follow the body of a woman, not the body following the shape of the dress." — Hubert de Givenchy
"Shoes transform your body language and attitude. They lift you physically and emotionally.” — Christian Louboutin
"The hardest thing in fashion is not to be known for a logo, but to be known for a silhouette." — Giambattista Valli
"Whoever said that money can't buy happiness, simply didn't know where to go shopping." — Bo Derek
"The way I dress depends on how I feel. I never have to psych myself up. Usually it just feels like it works." — Rihanna
"Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse." — Francis Bacon
"Humor is a big part of my style. You have to be willing to fall on your face a bit, to be that fashion roadkill. I know so many people who are die-hard fashion people who are way more educated than I am, but I love fashion. It's so much more important than just material." — Zoë Kravitz
"I believe that you have to be ready for the open door, the opportunity. And I will work until they stop booking me." — Coco Mitchell
"I don't like to produce things in a factory. It seems stressful. If I produce stuff, I have to work with a small team. I don't like working with a lot of people. I like the freedom of being creative." — Tomo Koizumi
"If you love something, wear it all the time. Find things that suit you. This is how you look extraordinary." – Vivienne Westwood
“The customer is the final filter. What survives the whole process is what people wear. I’m not interested in making clothes that end up in some dusty museum.” – Marc Jacobs
”What you wear is such an expression of who you are. That’s like someone picking out who I’m going to date!”– Diane Kruger
"My fashion is about the urban woman in the year 3000. I think about obscure, weird things and try to create a world around them." — Lady Gaga
"I love black because it affirms, designs, and styles. A woman in a black dress is a pencil stroke." — Yves Saint Laurent
"A woman's dress should be like a barbed-wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view." — Sophia Loren
"Fashion is not necessarily about labels. It's not about brands. It's about something else that comes from within you." — Ralph Lauren
"What's my style is not your style, and I don’t see how you can define it. It’s something that expresses who you are in your own way.” — Iris Apfel
"Being well dressed hasn't much to do with having good clothes. It’s a question of good balance and good common sense." — Oscar de la Renta
"I think fashion can do a lot. Fashion is very popular, so it can help broadcast a message and reach a new generation." — Maria Grazia Chiuri
"The shoes set up the tone and attitude, they change the perception of the way one wears clothes, what we call in France le porté. It is not about length, but the juxtaposition or décalage of the shoes—high or low—with the rest of the proportions." — Hedi Slimane
"High and low isn't such a novelty thing, it's how young people interpret the life we've been given. It's how we look at luxury brands, it's how we look at heritage brands." — Virgil Abloh
"Perseverance and resilience are key. I also try to remain true to my vision. The idea is to create go-to pieces for a woman's wardrobe and her life—beautifully crafted pieces that a woman will love today, in two months, in two years, in five years—and to do that for as many women as possible." — Narciso Rodriguez
"We are witnessing a 'gender shift.' I therefore design fashion at the service of it." — Stefano Pilati
"Gather up your courage like an armful of free clothes at a McQueen sample sale and follow your inner voice wherever it takes you." – Kelly Cutrone
“When you go to a nice restaurant, you want to be relaxed and have a drink and everything, you want to look at people who look well. You don’t want to look at some slob with an open shirt and a hairy chest—at least I don’t.” – Iris Apfel
“I adore wearing gems, but not because they are mine. You can’t possess radiance, you can only admire it.” – Elizabeth Taylor
“We have this saying, Christy and I. We don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day.” – Linda Evangelista
“Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you bought some sweatpants.” – Karl Lagerfeld
“Fashion wasn’t what you wore someplace anymore; it was the whole reason for going.” – Andy Warhol
“I was at school when Britney Spears’s ‘Baby One More Time’ came out. I changed my uniform to look like hers. I just looked slutty after that, so thank you, Britney.” – Alexa Chung
"Never, ever confuse what happens on a runway with fashion. A runway is spectacle. It's only fashion when a woman puts it on. Being well dressed hasn't much to do with having good clothes. It's a question of good balance and good common sense." — Oscar de la Renta
"I wear my sort of clothes to save me the trouble of deciding which clothes to wear." — Katherine Hepburn
"Fashion is part of the daily air and it changes all the time, with all the events. You can even see the approaching of a revolution in clothes. You can see and feel everything in clothes." — Diana Vreeland
"Fashion is very important. It is life-enhancing and, like everything that gives pleasure, it is worth doing well.” — Vivienne Westwood
"There's so much information now, and everybody sees everything. When we were young kids, we really wanted to shock, but you have to remember, it was the time of punk, and there was a lot of rebellion happening. It was a good thing. Now it's a bit more conventional." — Dries Van Noten
"I think the fashion is super serious and humor is suspect and people don't always know how to approach it. Sometimes people have questioned whether I was making fun of the industry or just at myself. I'm just trying to raise a smile. Clothes aren't meant to be worshipped at a church altar. I have a different approach to most designers." — Jeremy Scott
"Fluidity offers an alternate way of being, crossing and merging masculine and feminine." — Harris Reed
"The common thread for me in my career is a championing boss who allowed me to soar. I know for many of the Black people in fashion, this is typically not the case." — Sandrine Charles
"As a young girl, I've always dreamed of having a career like this. I think it's so important for me to be able to use my platform and to bring awareness, and especially during these times where there's so much happening in the world. Everyone has a voice, and I think why not use that voice and help women, and tell them to also be bold and be able to break barriers." — Imaan Hammam
"The work that I’m trying to do speaks to freedom. It speaks justice. And it also speaks to intelligence in terms of like, how can we not see what's happening?" — Kenneth Ize
"My commitment is to make a strong and modern collection without compromising my ethics and key values, taking into consideration where materials come from and who is making them—luxury with a conscience, or in other words, honest luxury." — Gabriela Hearst
"We all have those go-to pieces in our closet that we keep for years and literally wear out before we retire them. I'm here to make the go-tos, the keepers." — Jamie Okuma
"The zenith of elegance in any woman's wardrobe is the little black dress, the power of which suggests dash and refinement." — Andre Leon Talley
"Style is knowing what suits you, who you are, and what your assets are. It's excepting it all." – Bianca Jagger
"I may be a beginner at some things, but I've got a black belt in shopping." — Phyllis Nefler
“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
“I think that because I’m overweight, [my] fantasy was lightness. So I project my fantasy to the clothes, and now all I do is light, light clothes because it’s the one thing I don’t have. That is why I’m too afraid to lose weight because then I might make heavy clothes.” – Alber Elbaz
“I have four bedrooms in my house. One is for guests, the other three are for closets.”– André Leon Talley
“Fashion is part of the daily air, and it changes all the time, with all the events. You can even see the approaching of a revolution in clothes. You can see and feel everything in clothes.”– Diana Vreeland
"Fashion is the part of the daily air and it changes all the time, with all events. You can even see the approaching of a revolution in clothes. You can see and feel everything in clothes." — Diana Vreeland
"Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street. Fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening." — Coco Chanel
"Fashion is a religion in one sense. Once upon a time, our brand was considered the sanctum sanctorum of fashion. I want to produce things that people really want to buy." — Alessandro Michele
“I really would not call myself a fashion icon. I would call myself somebody who gets dressed by professionals… I would call me more of a monkey.” – Jennifer Lawrence
