For 115 years, WWD has not just reported on the fashion industry and observed the zeitgeist revolving around it, but has captured some of the most quotable moments from the voices who kept fashion and culture interesting. Here’s what some of them had to say through the decades.
1910-1950s
“Answering your questions inquiring as to the trade, I would say the atmosphere is rather smoky, but New York always has plenty of business if the people lay themselves out to get it.” — John Wanamaker, June 1910
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“Style is style. Woman is woman. And yet woman is style. How can we forecast what woman is going to do? As for me, I am a designer.” — Paul Poiret, September 1913
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“Certain dressmakers desire to pass for an artist. I have one ambition: that is to have good taste.” — Jean Patou, April 1920
“Just as I am against the usual and the banal, so am I also opposed to uncontrolled flights of fancy and extravagances of any sort committed in the name of originality.” — Lucien Lelong, August 1927
“When one says ‘feminine,’ it brings up a vision of ruffles and fussy ornamentation. Interesting is a better word, for that is what clothes are becoming.” — Edward H. Molyneux, December 1927
“Now the screen is finding that clothes must be sensible and wearable if they are to influence the fashion of the world at large.” — Adrian, Hollywood costume designer, January 1930
“Takes too much time, money and trouble to be a well-dressed woman. I also find men’s suits much more comfortable and I think I look better in them than I do in dresses.” — Marlene Dietrich, January 1933
“America makes clothes for American women, Paris makes clothes for Parisiennes. Both have to go their own way. American designers are fine for the job they have to do. But replacing French designers? There is no need for it, for over there they will keep on designing and selling fashions. No, mon ami, nothing replaces nothing.” — Elsa Schiaparelli, October 1940
“I am tired of supple things, let’s try something tighter.” — Hubert De Givenchy, January 1950
“If one admits fashion is an art, it must be regarded as a sincere and spontaneous creation. Dressmaking is a construction resembling architectural sculpture.” — Christian Dior, July 1956
Only in Paris do couture workers, from seamstress to mannequin, worship and treat a dress like a baby.” — Pierre Balmain, July 1956
“I do not design for photographers and reporters.” — Coco Chanel, September 1957
“When a woman walks the dress must walk, when she dances the dress must dance, when she raises her arm, the jacket should move discreetly.” — Cristóbal Balenciaga, July 1958
1960s-1970s
“I believe in American fashion, whether it’s from New York or California or anywhere else. I don’t think fashion is geographical.” — Eleanor Lambert, January 1964
“I’ve found out it’s the little things that are important…l pick up papers…Kleenex…make sure there’s sand in the ashtrays…and generally look out for all those details that keep up a store’s image. I agree with that old Spanish proverb: ‘The eye of the owner makes the cow grow fat.’” — Andrew Goodman, Bergdorf Goodman, May 1964
“Honesty in everything is the first quality.” — Sophia Loren, January 1965
“Camp is an outrageous thing, usually a person who is outrageous in either clothes or personality.” — Norman Norell, August 1965
“I’m afraid people are going to have to take me just as I am.…I’m not planning to change.” Nancy Reagan, July 1966
“The absolute and frank truth is I’m lost when it comes to fashion today. Ten years ago, women dressed well and looked dignified. Today, if you dress like a decent person, you are made to feel you’re a million years old. If you dress young, you look like an idiot. What choice is there? — Gloria Guinness, January 1968
“Right now we’re not concerned with sex at The Factory.” Andy Warhol, September 1969
There are three fashion periods — the past, the present and Mae West.” — Edith Head, October 1969
“I hate status.”— Kenneth Jay Lane, October 1969
“I want everything to remain open…everything to be possible. You can’t put women in a mold anymore. Now, they decide. Couturiers can only propose.” — Emanuel Ungaro, January 1970
“We must make women more and more feminine.” — Katharine Hepburn, January 1970
“I’m very lazy. The only exercise I get is moving the ashtray an inch.” — Duchess of Windsor, May 1970
“What’s wrong with the way women dress is that they don’t know anything about their bodies.…Whores know everything about their bodies and that’s why they look so good.” — Ossie Clark, April 1971
“Who is charming all the time?” — Ali MacGraw, August 1972
“But there are really no fashion leaders in fashion today. No one can really dictate what fashion will be from season to season. It’s not good or bad — it’s just what’s happening.” — Calvin Klein, January 1973
“I had a mirror in front of me for the last year. It has nothing to do with narcissism. It’s just to observe myself, mostly when I’m alone, to explore what I look like. Camus said one is responsible for one’s face.” — Faye Dunaway, June 1973
“My one real weakness is clothes.” — Twiggy, June 1973
“I’ve never done what’s in fashion and never been inspired by anything outside my own head. Actually, I’ve never done fashions. I did harmonies, things that were pretty together. They resembled nothing I’d seen.” — Madeleine Vionnet, January 1974
“To us, leather is like flour is to a baker.” — Aldo Gucci, March 1974
“I never think I look strange. I always look exactly like I wanted to.” — Zandra Rhodes, April 1974
“The pieces of sculpture that I create for myself in fabric attempt to find a certain resemblance to a rock in their purity, in order to attain a kind of perfection.” — Madame Grès, 1975
“I’m a professional model, not a Black model. If you have to, label me Beverly Johnson; that’s the name my mother gave me.” — Beverly Johnson, September 1975
“I certainly hope I fit in somewhere. Why should everybody else go down in history in it and not me?” — C.Z. Guest, June 1976
“I needed a violent explosion of fantasy. This collection was a dream that I have had for a long time. I have always wanted to do a collection that included everything that I love in my life.” — Yves Saint Laurent, August 1976
“I absolutely adore clothes; they add whimsy to life. One bores oneself enough, why do it with what one wears.…I’d get upset in the cradle if I didn’t like the color of my diapers. Style is, after all, something you’re born with; it’s not about money.” — Nan Kempner, April 1977
“Fashion is my least favorite subject. It’s my style to dress strictly American. Never do l run off to Paris and I have never owned any Saint Laurent couture.…The very thought of spending $1,500 to $2,000 on a dress and then paying duty, well…I pause.” — Pat Buckley, October 1977
“I hope only one thing, that is that when I’m 80, I’ll be lucid enough always to know what not to wear to look ridiculous.” — Anna Piaggi, July 1978
“Twenty years ago, I dreamed of life and industry on the moon. Today, I expect nothing of the future. Things come in life one after the other.” — Pierre Cardin, February 1979
1980s-1990s
“I’m not a great talker. I’m an observer.” — Eugenia Sheppard, June 1980
“I take an elitist view of television. I think you shouldn’t be allowed to watch it until you’ve read a certain amount, until your tastes are formed — until you’re about 9.…I would rather give 6-year-old a vodka and tonic than two hours of television.” — Fran Leibowitz, August 1981
“My mother has always been unhappy with what I do. She would much rather I do something nicer, like be a bricklayer.” — Mick Jagger, January 1983
“I’d rather work with a box Brownie and a good model than the best camera in the world and a crummy girl.” — Helmut Newton, January 1984
“It upsets me that women are more attracted by the practical side of dressing than by the idea of looking divine.” — Claude Montana, May 1984
“It’s a timeless classic. [The wrap dress] taught me my three essential Fs in designing for women. It’s flattering, feminine and, above all, functional.” — Diane von Furstenberg, January 1985
“Images speak, and you have to listen. The language of form comes before the language of ideas and taste. You’ve got to listen to it; you can’t ignore it.” — Francesco Clemente, January 1987
“Very frankly, I think I’m designing clothes for women who don’t exist.” — Yohji Yamamoto, April 1988
“I react against everything that’s chic and traditional. If you don’t revolt, then you don’t go anywhere.” — Martin Margiela, March 1989
“I guess we are all narcissists. It may not be conscious, but I think we often put a sense of ourselves into things.” — Anna Wintour, November 1989
“If we are in a need business, we are in a lousy business.” — Leslie H. Wexner, January 1990
“Most buyers in most stores are not really buyers.” — Gene Pressman, Barneys New York, January 1990
“A luxury product is something that makes people dream whenever they buy it, be it a bottle of Dom Perignon or a Dior dress.” Bernard Arnault, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, April 1990
“It’s a long way from South Central to the south of France.” — John Singleton, May 1991
“I like suits, jackets, sophisticated touches of color. I want my wedding looks to be different from what’s expected.” — Vera Wang, September 1992
“I have never felt French. Do I feel European? No. Do I feel American? No. I’m more artistic than many of the designers here. But Americans have a strong sense of image, of getting an image across quick and clean.” — Thierry Mugler, September 1993
“Women don’t want clothes.…Clothes are not things that they need, they have to be something they want.” — Maria Cornejo, February 1994
“I do have the discipline. Maybe it’s that my appearance is a bit wild.” — John Galliano, May 1995
“My fashion comes from inside me; it’s an intuitive thing. I have to wait to see what I get tired of and what I want to put on next.” — Miuccia Prada, 1996
“Rock and rap stars started wearing my clothes. We dress a lot of athletes and actors.…These people send a message of what is hip and what is allowed.” — Tommy Hilfiger, March 1996
“I called this summit because I wanted a platform to refute the idea that I am something of a spendthrift. Yes, flying you all here was a bit expensive. But at least I flew you commercial as opposed to chartering private jets.” — Donna Karan, June 1997
“I don’t revisit anything that was ugly the first time. The ’80s, for example, I hate the ’80s. I made a pact with all my girlfriends: ‘Girls, we’re not getting involved in this ’80s thing.'” — Gwyneth Paltrow, December 1998
“I remember the ’60s youthquake and I had difficulty adjusting to that. Fashion for the first time was coming from the streets, and I could not visualize my customer wearing this youth fashion, but by God they did.” — Bill Blass, February 1999
“I feel like I am having a fashion orgasm. I just put this [John Galliano gown] on, and it fit like a glove. This is all a bit surreal. I feel like I’m acting and playing me.” — Cate Blanchett, March 1999
“I’m not like a lot of people in the fashion sector whose mentality is ‘mors tua, vita mea’ — if you lose, I win. I believe in a less cutthroat, less hysterical way of doing business. If the sector as a whole is successful, then everyone is successful.” — Patrizio Bertelli, Prada, September 1999
2000-2010
“Most clothes have nothing going on from the backside, so you’re wasting half your time at runway shows.” — Geoffrey Beene, February 2000
“I just wanted to find lipstick and foundation colors that worked. I wasn’t exactly planning on revamping the cosmetics category.” — Bobbi Brown, November 2001
“I usually only see my own movies once, twice at the most.” — Julianne Moore, January 2002
“I don’t care how much your newspaper says the power suit is out — it is not out.” — Joan Collins, September 2002
“I made fun of fashion, Vogue and Diana Vreeland. She’s somebody nobody can touch, like the Virgin Mary. She got on my nerves. Of course she was the model for Anna Wintour and all these editors today, except that she was original. I satirized all that.” — William Klein, March 2003
“People, I think, are more into things that I’m into: fabric, more personality in fashion. Now fashion can be so many things and still be right. I quite like that feeling about it.” — Dries Van Noten, 2004
“I’m a commercial designer. I never pretended to be anything other than that.” — Tom Ford, March 2004
“Let’s be real — I’m obviously not at the level of a John Galliano, but I do have a certain style and a certain image that people respond to.” — Jennifer Lopez, January 2005
“I have always admired WWD’s wit and style, and the way the ink doesn’t rub off on your hands.” — Miss Piggy, February 2005
“When I look back, I’m like, ‘Wow, I really did that. And I accomplished this.’” — Rihanna, September 2006
“I changed the way I want to see women dressed. I don’t think they need to turn heads at all costs, but they can attract with mannerisms, attitudes or movements.” — Donatella Versace, February 2007
“The worst outfit I ever wore was when David and I went to a Versace party in matching Gucci leather outfits. Goodness me, that picture haunts me.” — Victoria Beckham, February 2007
“For 45 years, everyone thinks I love parties and to go out. It’s all wrong. I love to stay home.” — Valentino, November 2007
“Maybe there are too many trendy clothes and trendy stores. Maybe it’s OK to be a little more elusive and mysterious. Fashion is mysterious.” — Carolina Herrera, April 2008
“I’ll never be about the 20,000 phantom dresses that no one wears.” — Jason Wu, March 2009
“I sometimes describe Burberry as a beautiful diamond that was trodden into the ground a bit. It was dirty and foggy. My role wasn’t to find a new diamond but to clean the facets of this diamond until it sparkled again.” — Christopher Bailey, March 2009
“The only thing important to me is making clothes.” — Rei Kawakubo, April 2009
“When business gets difficult, it helps heighten your focus. Even though we always have a prioritized focus on the customer.” — Pete Nordstrom, May 2009
“I was thinking, let’s rise to the occasion.” — Rick Owens, May 2010
2010-2025
“There is something different about fashion. In fashion, color is an ingredient…designers use color just as a chef uses ‘salt and pepper’ or a writer uses the word ‘the.’” — Judge Victor Marrero, August 2011, overseeing the Christian Louboutin lawsuit against Yves Saint Laurent.
“I knew that I wanted to make a suit for the guy who was running away from the suit. I wanted to create a suit that felt as cool as the guy in jeans and a T-shirt. I wanted to create something timeless.” — Thom Browne, March 2013
“I don’t like the word [‘classic’]. It makes you think we didn’t do any work.” — Ralph Lauren, January 2014
“Today it’s extremely hard to launch one’s brand, and that’s also why we are helping these young talents. You have to be very brave and very entrepreneurial — you have to dare to create your own brand.” — Delphine Arnault, LVMH, April 2014
“When I do a collaboration with brands, I do them with notable masters so that I can experience the true purpose of collaboration, which is to learn.” — Pharrell Williams, May 2014
“It used to be reality TV. Now it’s mostly directed reality, which creates this impression of virtual fake reality.” — Jean Paul Gaultier, July 2014
“It’s becoming harder and harder to come up with ideas that one thinks will engage an audience because people’s understanding is becoming more sophisticated and enhanced.” — Andrew Bolton, The Costume Institute, April 2015
“A lot of people think stylists come in and say, ‘This is what you should wear,’ but I never approach it that way. I’m here to channel their tastes and find the stuff they don’t have time to find themselves.” — Elizabeth Stewart, November 2015
“The two biggest challenges for a brand like [Vetements] is cash flow and production. If that works, then fashion is a happy place for us.” — Demna, November 2015
“I’m going to do things in a different way, because a good designer needs to keep up with the times.” — Riccardo Tisci, May 2016
“I like me. I’ve liked me for a very long time. I learned early on how to get the haters out of my life. You have to surround yourself with people who uplift you. The best revenge is success and good work. That tends to shut ’em up.” — Michelle Obama, June 2016
“I like this very twisted version of what I think is reality. Because reality is just reality.” — Marc Jacobs, September 2016
“If everything is approachable, it’s not magic. It’s just clothes.” — Pierpaolo Piccioli, March 2016
“We Should All Be Feminist.” — Maria Grazia Chiuri, March 2017
“Obviously I’m in the celebrity category, but I just wanted a bottle that was so simple that can look like it’s something sitting on your counter and be a beautiful object. I tried to make it really timeless so that it can’t just all be about celebrity fragrance.” — Kim Kardashian, November 2017
“I’ve built my show like it’s the end of the world. You will see from the looks that we are all survivors. I’m definitely a survivor, for so many reasons.” — Olivier Rousteing, January 2018
“I can’t tell my clients no when they say they want something.” — Law Roach, May 2018
“The key is to anticipate what would be your team, what would be the next market, and in advance. You have to do that when you are successful. Don’t wait until you have the problem to solve the problem.” — Sidney Toledano, LVMH, June 2018
“In our industry, we’re so focused on the future, the destination a lot. We’re not so focused on the journey.” — Tracy Reese, October 2020
“There’s this exasperated need to be present around the world, with brands wanting to prove their power, but this can be demonstrated in different ways, with a valid product that is wearable, not necessarily designed to cause a sensation and quickly be forgotten. We really need to slow down and I don’t think much has changed after the pandemic.” — Giorgio Armani, October 2021
“It’s something we all could do more, which is to do things that you don’t know what we’re doing. And it’s such a luxury.” — Tilda Swinton, December 2022
“I remain fascinated by what lasts for eternity, locations that endure the test of time, that reflect the eternal concept of beauty, always an inspiration for me.” — Brunello Cucinelli, March 2023
“I prefer a bare face these days. I still love a big makeup look when I feel like it — there lays the empowerment.” — Pamela Anderson, December 2023
“Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. Steal, adapt, borrow. It doesn’t matter where one takes things from. It’s where one takes them to.” — Jonathan Anderson, July 2024
“There’s really never been a hurdle or a boundary or a job that I couldn’t get because of my heritage…and I have celebrated it my entire career, I’ve never hidden it. I couldn’t, I wouldn’t.” — Narciso Rodriguez, September 2024
“I’m trying to figure out how to really milk every second.” — Anya Taylor-Joy, September 2024
“I really love when people appreciate American fashion, because it’s worthy of appreciation.” — Tory Burch, October 2024
“I’m feeling like a tangerine. I’m feeling sweet. I’m feeling fresh. So that’s what we’re getting in the front row [at Giambattista Valli].” — Megan Thee Stallion, January 2025
“As a Black founder, there are misconceptions that we can only make products for hair like ours. Society has trained us to focus on our differences, and it’s kept us in boxes.” — Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, February 2025
“I want to take over Paris, and I want to sell a lot of stuff.” — Willy Chavarria, January 2025