Sonia Rykiel Quotes

You know, the more grown-up you are, the more you like Proust.

Perfume is like a parenthesis, a moment of freedom, peace, love and sensuality in between the disturbances of modern living.

I think that clothes should be a shelter like a house or a rug. I think that there is that element of protection and a uniform can be just that.

Even if I'm in Japan and I don't speak Japanese and the woman facing me doesn't speak French but she's dressed in Rykiel, and she recognizes me, then we have a common language right away.

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.

The fashion industry can in a certain way be very hard and closed.

It doesn't matter one damn bit whether fashion is art or not. You don't question whether an incredible chef is an artist or not-his cakes are delicious and that's all that matters.

I can be negatively criticised, but this is actually a positive thing, especially if the critic is smart, and helpful. I am very attentive to critics, they let me go ahead and push myself harder to continue.

I am still taking care of the creation of the collection alongside my staff, and my daughter Nathalie Rykiel, is the artistic director of Sonia Rykiel, who takes care of a lot of things. We are very alike and also very close.

A scarf has to be the most beautiful thing ever invented to wear! It's a winding, a continuity, an infinity! I love things that are endless, I hate them to stop. It's like order and disorder: I rather love disorder and things that move, it's a state where one gets more things done!

I hate the word feminine! I mean, there is a woman and a man and when I say "woman" it suggests all that is radiant, tender, fascinating, gentle, demoniac, exaggerated! Feminine makes me think of somebody who is spindly and over-sweet: I don't like that!

My shows are about the complete woman who swallows it all. It's a question of survival.

The natures of men and women are very mixed and for me the most fascinating type of woman is the one who is a little masculine, has a little of the man in her, and the sort of man who is fabulous is the one who is a little woman too. It's impossible not to mix them!

My clothes are put together out of different basic elements so that a woman can express the way she wants to look, transform, metamorphosize herself not as the woman I decided but as she herself wants to be.

A very young girl, myself, and my 70-year-old mother all look quite different wearing some of the same clothes from my shop. The whole secret is to know how to do it and some people never will, just like some can't make light pastry: they are lacking in some sort of grace.

I feel like a slave, and in a way like an artist, because I need to get inspiration everyday, from everything and everyone.

It's useless to send models out on the runway to cry.

Design job fell on me. I didn't want to do it. It was an accident. For the first 10 years I said, "Tomorrow I'm stopping."

I think that there are so many women who understand nothing about clothes and they should try and understand themselves before they start putting on disguises: they should stand in front of the mirror for a day, two days or three, and find out what they have which is beautiful, interesting: what they should show: hair, neck, arms, or hands.

I married a man who was in fashion. I began to work when my daughter Nathalie was about eight or 10 years old. Then one day I began to make a sweater, and eventually the sweater was on the front page of Elle magazine. And the day after I was the queen of knit in America.

Perfume follows you; it chases you and lingers behind you. It's a reference mark. Perfume makes silence talk.

Men and women are so alike that a woman must make an intellectual effort to differentiate herself. As soon as one understands who one is, one can disguise oneself any way one wants. As soon as one has found one's look, one's shape, one does not need to alter it too much, in fact I would say that one should not change it.

First I made a dress because I was pregnant and I wanted to be the most beautiful pregnant woman. Then I made a sweater because I wanted to have one that wasn't like anyone else's.

I couldn't have opened a store without putting books with the clothes. I am still writing as I have always done, and have published my ninth book "L'envers à l'endroit" last year. I am currently working on a dictionary of my favourite words.

I always have a lot of vents and slits in the clothes I design, even inside the pockets so that I can slip my hands inside my clothes and touch my skin. I want to be able to feel my body naked inside my clothes.

Your body can be very female, which is something you can do nothing about, but then you can have the soul, the mind and the spirit of both male and female. The women friends I am closest to somehow have this masculine side to them, they shove their hands in their pockets when they walk: I love that side.

I don't like women who are multiform, who wear many different shapes. Women who retain a unique shape are usually unique people.

It's important to know yourself well, in order to create your own style of fashion to suit your own body shape.

I was rather free, and I always did what I wanted to do, sometimes without listening to the people who warned me not to do this or that.

I am what I am. Before I was not so proud to make fashion. My family thought fashion wasn't very interesting. So I hid that.

The fashion industry is a free world, with creative codes that can be hardly considered sometimes, but it's also up to women to create their own style, and own trend.

Sometimes in the fashion industry we come across some unfair rules, but no one is obliged to follow them.

[Nathalie Rykiel] knows by heart the genetic codes of the brand, and she also has a very contemporary and creative opinions about it.

I did not plan to have such a career in the fashion world. All that I wanted, was to have ten kids and raise them!

With the exception of lingerie and theater I'm interested in everything to do with clothes and perfumes: everything which is an extension of woman.

Everything I do is really an expression of myself, through colors and shapes and, at the same time, I try to explain what I feel not only as a creator but also as a woman. I cannot separate one from the other.

You can create fashion everywhere in the world, but the place where you are crowned is Paris.

The knitted jumper comes in different trends, colours, shapes, and is adaptable in various ways when wearing. But there are also different noticeable marks of Sonia Rykiel brand, like black stripes which are very recognisable too.

For the collection, I am like a painter or a writer. I may or may not be a character in my own story.

I was influenced by the hippie movement in San Francisco and by the feminist movement, which had arrived in Paris.

I'm not at all interested in doing clothes for movies or stage, in stage dressing or costuming. Nor can I design lingerie, for I never wear any! At one time I used to wear a lot of lingerie but now I'm in a mood of total nudity!

I love flinging everything I buy behind me onto the back-seat of the car: it's always full of packages when I travel, when I leap in my car!

I can't go any place without going to museums. It's very important for me.

My husband had a clothing store in Paris, and I had his factory make specifically for me something similar to the one I was looking for. We made it in different colours, and decided to sell them in the store...and in a day, they were sold out! This sweater became later known as the "poor boy sweater" and it ended up making the cover of Elle magazine, and in a day, I became the "Queen of knit", without knowing anything about knitting!

For me, luxury isn't just the real thing. It's also fake. Swarovski crystals or real diamonds? It's a game. You have to be luxurious nude.

People said making clothes inside out was not proper. I disagreed because clothes that are inside out are as beautiful as a cathedral.

My breakfast is very important.

As a slave [to fashion], I can be very dramatic and very demanding of myself and of the people I work with.