Fashion History Quotes

For me, clothing is nothing without the story behind it. Everything I own evokes some kind of memory.

For me, clothing has always been connected to history. That's what draws me in.

Downstairs in my house, I have a museum room. I keep all of my awards down there, and childhood photos, and even all the clothes I've worn on tour, in videos and on album covers.

My parents never mentioned anything about fashion in our household, instead we used to talk about literature, theatre, and arts...this is why I have kept a real relation with the Art world, by putting books from the beginning in my shops' windows.

When I was growing up in the 1950s, sweaters were a huge thing.

Pretty mundane closet, but a lot of ties. And I tend not to throw anything out, so I have a lot of clothes from all times from my life. I can be a little sentimental with things like that.

I've not worn a dress since about 1985. It always amazes me how there is still a fascination for it in England. The rest of the world doesn't seem to care. I'm not sure whether they don't remember or whether they've just moved on from it. I was brought up in the glam era.

I have never known the time when I did not wear stays. My stays are part of me.

I was like, 'What's Margiela?' back then.

The color, the shape, and the texture--none of it is accidental. Every item we wear has a glorious (or sometimes not so glorious) history, and that history extends back years--centuries, even--before Oscar de la Renta's 2002 collection.

Fashion only seems to make sense if it's rooted in some dimension of history or if it feels like a continuation of an idea.

Then years back, when I moved to California, I happened to see a book about fashions of 19th-century Victorian England, only four pages of which was devoted to the dress of the working class.

It was an odd situation. For a century and a half, men got rid of their own hair, which was perfectly comfortable, and instead covered their heads with something foreign and uncomfortable. Very often it was actually their own hair made into a wig. People who couldn't afford wigs tried to make their hair look like a wig.

I had seen the photographs of Harlem in its glory days, stylish men in bespoke suits, women so well dressed that they'd put the models in 'Vogue' to shame. I knew that Harlemites loved to dance, to pray, and to eat.

Our conception of 1950s underwear is a lovely vintage aesthetic, but actually, wearing stockings with no elastic and a girdle was heavy duty.

The last time a straight man worked in the fashion industry, we got a fanny pack.

In the 80's we had high, high, waisted pants, that if they came up any higher they'd have to go up another size, if you know what I mean.

It took me a while to warm to the '20s costumes on 'Downton.' I love it when women accentuate their curves, and that era was all about hiding them. The shapes they wore then were in tune with female empowerment. Cutting off their hair and hiding their busts was a way of saying, 'We're equal to men!'

I'm fascinated by historical fashion, and I like to live in the past slightly. If I could walk around all day dressed in a crinoline, I would.

When I started looking for pointed shoes, I used to go to Fairfax on Orchard Street in New York City, one of those little pushcart guys. I'd say, 'You got any pointy shoes?' They would go way, way in the back and come back with a dusty box, blow the dust off the top, and say, 'What do you want with these things? Give me twenty bucks. Go on, get outta here!' And that was the beginning.

People didn't just wear wedding dresses in the past. They also wore plain cotton shifts beneath them. As pretty as the dresses might be, and as lovely as they might look on display, if a museum doesn't hang the shifts beside them or acknowledge that the shifts existed, that exhibit's incomplete.

Today designer Alexander McQueen passed away...His talent was immense and he will remain immortal in the history of Fashion.

In my day, I, being the first supermodel, I hawked everything.

When I see beautiful clothes, I want to keep them, preserve them... Clothes, like architecture and art, reflect an era.

In the first half of the 20th century, fashion was simply not a very English thing to do.