One is born with good taste. It's very hard to acquire. You can acquire the patina of taste. But what Elsie Mendl had was something else that's particularly American––an appreciation of vulgarity. Vulgarity is a very important ingredient in life. I'm a great believer in vulgarity––if it's got vitality. A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika. We all need a splash of bad taste––it's hearty, it's healthy, it's physical. I think we could use more of it. No taste is what I'm against.

Never fear being vulgar, just boring, middle class or dull.

The way to judge a good hand is that the fingers are the same size at the tip as where they come out of the hand itself.

Pink is the navy blue of India.

I don't think anyone has ever been in a better place at a better time than I was when I was editor of Vogue. Vogue always did stand for people's lives. I mean, a new dress doesn't get you anywhere; it's the life you're living in the dress, and the sort of life you had lived before, and what you will do in it later. Like all great times, the sixties were about personalities.

I think laying out a beautiful picture in a beautiful way is a bloody bore. I think you've got to blow it right across the page and down the side, crop it, cut it in half, combine it with something else... do something with it. You've got to make something out of it.

I think your imagination is your reality