Azzedine Alaia Quotes

It's true with fashion, acting, anything: Make sure it's timeless, but at the same time, there's got to be a little hint of risk.

Fashion is about change, don't you think?

To endeavor to rehabilitate the sabbath of our forefathers is as foolish as to try to make people go back into log houses and cook in a fire-place. Some persons can never realize that the world grows; that what was a help to one age becomes a hindrance to another; that time corrects the mistakes of men and that respect and reverence for our ancestors does not necessarily require us to adopt their clothes or their habits.

The past is what provides us with the building blocks. Our job today is to create new buildings out of them.

I can understand when people copy people of the past and make the future their own.

Tradition can, to be sure, participate in a creation, but it can no longer be creative itself.

We need to open up the future. We also need to keep everything valuable from the past.

Building the future holds more attraction than ancestor worship, whichever ancestor we're talking about.

We're not good at propping up old carcasses. We want to be on top of what's vital at any particular time, and not just hold onto something because it has a name.

You have to modernise; you have to change - you can't just be traditional for the fun of being traditional.

You must be in tune with the times and prepared to break with tradition.

The value of 'Made in Italy' must necessarily be up-to-date. This is the philosophy that Italia Independent has embraced. We decided from the outset to do away with stereotypes and attune ourselves to the extreme pace, to the incessant metamorphoses of the globalized world.

Success follows those adept at preserving the substance of the past by clothing it in the forms of the future.

I like to be buttoned onto tradition. The thing is to improve it, twist it and mold it; to make something new of it; not to deny it. The riches of history can be plucked at any point.

I love seeing the new generation take something that we've done and reinvent it for a whole new time.

There is something about Dior that reminds me of New York City Ballet. They both have a classic, glamorous basis but are trying to evolve the arts in new and innovative ways.

We should not fear what is new, but we should not throw out that which is in the past but is still valuable.

We can't look for greatness in the past.

It's good to be progressive, but don't shun the good things about tradition.

The past is always recycled. I'm just taking what the people I looked up to did and translating it for my generation.

There are always people who are into the old way of doing things. I don't think it's a bad thing necessarily, but things change - nothing stays the same. If you can stay true to yourself, you're always going to be legendary.

Good design is long-lasting! It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated.

Fashion's not about looking back. It's always about looking forward.

Fashion passes, but style remains.

The ancients tell us what is best; but we must learn of the moderns what is fittest.