Historical Clothing Quotes

Modesty died when clothes were born.

If I were born in the 1700s, I would look like a rounded man.

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

The clothes chosen for me as a child had a strong element of the Pre-Raphaelite, muted greens and ivories, dusty rose, what seems in retrospect an eccentric amount of black.

I've never been happier to be born in this time than when I was wearing a corset.

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.

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.

My favourite men's clothes are like Victorian British clothing.

As a kid, picturing people who grew up in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I walking around in hose and latched shoes in the woods behind my house was an interesting atmospheric thing for me.

Sometimes when I'm swimming, I think that maybe someday I'll put my red Speedo up for auction. Or maybe I'll donate it to the Smithsonian. They can stuff it with two plums and a gherkin and put it on display.

How women dressed every single day back in those days is seen as kind of incredible - it must have taken so much time. But there's something so romantic about that because it's so different to how we dress. That aesthetic is so appealing, it's not what we're used to nowadays.

A cravat is the only item of named after Croatians. Balkan mercenaries were brought to Paris by Louis XIV. Their strange and exotic attire attracted the French bon hommes, who were wearing formal ruffs, and who immediately took to the simple and relaxed military cloth tied at the neck.

What do you want?" Sophronia was moved to exasperation. "Me? Stockings and breeches to come back in fashion. I do miss seeing a man's calves.

Except in this ignorant and material century, men have always worn precious stuffs and beautiful colours as well as women.

If I had to model clothes in a time period other than the 21st century, I think I'd like to model way back when they just wore skin loincloths. That would be best suited for me - better than corsets. I'm quite claustrophobic.

I wasn't a great student, but I was interested in this theater thing, and I could spend hours in the library researching why the cuffs in the 18th century had four buttons. It was my handle.

In the time of swords and periwigs and full-skirted coats with flowered lappets - when gentlemen wore ruffles, and gold-laced waistcoats of paduasoy and taffeta - there lived a tailor in Gloucester.

My tastes formed quite early. All I ever wanted to do was go to costume museums.

That the women of the Old Testament were dressed with oriental richness there is no doubt, nor are they censured for so arraying themselves.

The dresses I wore are in the Smithsonian now.

For me, I tend to enjoy wearing any period costume. I love how fashion and clothing has changed and evolved through time.

In my research, I learned that the way these twenties pieces are constructed, in one garment, can be very simple, and in others they can be very complicated. That's what made an elusive fit that we can't always get these days. Knowing this, I would like to share some of these secrets and use them in a collection.

I have pictures of my grandmother from the 1920s and '30s in avant-garde dresses that looked like they could have come from the House of Worth or Lucien Lelong. She would never say if they were couture, but I do recall her telling me, 'All my clothes and shoes came from Paris.'

I am used to wearing corsets. Even when I was first starting out it was either Shakespeare or Chekov. Everything that I was doing involved corsets. I guess I am just not destined to breathe that deeply.

Corsets do look so pretty. Once I watched it, I was like, "Well, they do look nicer than the way I do normally," but they're really uncomfortable. You start to realize why women would pass out. We had the real ones, and they were just awful. At one point, I was like, "I think that's my spleen that this is digging into." So, if I had a nightgown, that was always really comfy. I had a few coats that I thought were pretty cool.