It was my idea that if you started any kind of business, you should begin somewhere near where you hoped to end. In other words, if I wanted to make really good clothes to order, I would start out making good, and therefore expensive, clothes to order. If I started making inexpensive clothes, I thought probably I'd die making them.

All changes in clothes rise out of the lives of the people who wear them. The function of the designer is simply to see a little ahead of time what the people want, and to provide it. No designer can start anything really new and different unless there is a public all ready for it.

It is impossible to be completely abstract about clothes because they have no life unless they are worn. They must fit onto a body or they do not exist.

Women want to wear what they do because of what goes on in their heads. Their size and shape have practically nothing to do with it.

Fashion is that horrid little man with an evil eye who tells you that your last winter's coat may be in perfect physical condition, but you can't wear it. You can't wear it because it has a belt and this year 'we are not showing belts.

The French legend is a very simple one. All really beautiful clothes are designed in the houses of the French couturiers and all women want those clothes.

All one really requires for putting anything over is enough energy and resistance to keep on plugging the idea. Someone will eventually fall.