Azzedine Alaia Quotes

After working with clothes for so long, it seemed right to design them.

I drape a lot. I cut. I have to touch. For me, it's almost impossible to start without that.

No one ever taught me, and I never had formal classes in pattern making, so I was like, Okay, I'll just drape, and I'll sew as I pin it.

I design some of my own clothes now.

I'd like mostly stuff for design, because I like to design clothing.

I wanted to be considered a good craftsman. I wanted my dresses to be constructed like buildings, molded to the curves of the female form, stylizing its shape.

In Paris, we call the people who make clothing 'couturiers' - they develop new clothing items - but actually, the work of designing is to make something that works in real life.

Making your own clothes is great - but don't make everything, or I'll be out of a job!

In grade school, my mother, who was a professional tailor, would make all my clothes. I became obsessed with designing them myself.

It's a fabulous thing to give life to fabric, to make something move well, the harmony of colour.

I have to say, I grew up with fashion because my mother was a seamstress, and she had an atelier. She would cut the first pattern, and then she had people working for her. So I grew up in an atelier, watching people all around me sewing. I was fascinated.

I don't design my own clothes. It's so not what I think about.

I think pattern makers are some of the most underrated, undervalued people in fashion. They're the people who are sometimes the geniuses in designing clothing.

I love draping; it's less about proportion than fit and the fabric. It's very specialized and I think when women see the construction, they respond to it immediately.

My mom modeled and made clothes, so I always had such an appreciation for design.

People get this very romantic vision of a fashion designer who in one night makes 25 sketches and in the morning throws them on the table and there are a lot of women in white aprons with the pins on the lapel and they start to grab the sketches and... It's not like that.

Even before I was discovered in 1966, I used to make my own clothes. I learned how to sew early on, and it's still my passion now. I constantly have ideas in my head about clothes so jumped at the chance to do my own collection and am very hands-on. Everything I design, I wear and I love.

If you take away print and embroidery, you have to challenge yourself a bit more on the cut.

Designing was always something I was interested in. I studied fashion design in high school as well as how to sew.

One thing I learned is how much easier it is to write about clothes than it is to make them.

Then I learned how to do wraparounds and things like that. I had no experience.

My father writes through clothes.

All of my work stems from the simplest of ideas that go back to the earliest civilizations: making clothing from one piece of cloth. It is my touchstone.

With imagination and personal creativity, people who sew can design the way they look to suit themselves.

I'm into fashion and designing clothes and stuff.