Alber Elbaz Quotes

I created the peplum so you can eat in it. You can have a dessert, you can have another sandwich.

I think a good designer can exist everywhere and anywhere and all the time. It's all about being good, and I think that our job basically is to make women and men look good.

My job is to do. My job is to make women beautiful. What do I have to say?

Women can dream at 9 in the morning and at 10 o'clock at night - it doesn't matter.

What we want is clothing we think we can fly in. That's why I opened the show with flying dresses.

It's a major job to help men and women look beautiful.

I wanted to see people from different age groups, body shapes and personalities wearing Lanvin That is what Lanvin is all about and represents - we dont only do clothes for 20-year-old girls. I love to see mature women wearing Lanvin as well. I love wrinkles, I love grey hair.

In high fashion, we're always accused of doing things that are not very relevant, not the real world. I know that it's important sometimes to do fantasy, but I felt like touching people and going back to different women and men, especially the idea of different ages and body shapes.

I was thinking recently, If the body really is the new dress, as some are saying - with women buying boobs, butts, faces - then who needs a dressmaker? So I started designing spring like a plastic surgeon - everything stretchy and nude. But after three weeks, I was so bored with myself and the world, I began adding diamond butterflies and chiffon and colors. I realized that fashion is not about second skin. It's not the perfect white shirt or camel jacket. What women need is a dream.

In fashion, the time is so short, and even with pre-collection, there are not only dresses, shoes, bags, and furs but now raincoats and T-shirts. It's just an endless amount of work that we have to produce in no time.

A singer can quit once he or she has made ten great songs; a director can finish once he or she has made five amazing films; a writer just needs to write three great books.

I do sport at the gym a few times a week, but I hate it. Work is my only remedy. I feel so twisted and horrible in the morning, but then I go to the office and I start feeling better. Work is my Tylenol. Extra-strength.

All I want is beautiful. I mean, I like grey hair, I love wrinkles. But this is me.

I certainly can't complain. I work six days a week, if not seven, and eighteen hours out of twenty-four - fortunately, with a great deal of pleasure. Why? Because I only do something if I want to do it; I need to feel a desire, to find pleasure in moving forward, creating, moving, inventing.

In fashion we're lucky, we make dreams come true.

What I love in fashion is to tell a story through a creation.

I have a problem to do a collection that is a secondary line. I mean, you don't want to be the stepsister. You want to be Cinderella. Show me one girl who wants to be the stepsister.

The worst thing that can happen is if you're stuck within a bubble and you think that is what life is all about. It's great to see other people and hear from people of different ages and opinions.

I'm not a plastic surgeon, and I cannot change the DNA of a person, but when I see a woman try on my clothes and she feels beautiful, I know I am doing my job.

Women try to be the best everywhere, and it's impossible. I want my clothes to give women the freedom to just be - I want them to put on my dresses and shine.

I'm not a religious person in the regular sense, but in the Bible you're not allowed to steal, you're not allowed to lie and you're not allowed to feel you're above other people.

I don't go out to parties because I'd look terrible in pictures. My escape is television - it's like meditation to me.

When a woman's clothes are in harmony with her emotions, she shines from within.

I was a fat child; I was asthmatic. No wonder I'm a hypochondriac.

I spend my time backstage at the Lanvin shows, and when I come out at the end, all I see are people's eyes.

If you take something out of the freezer, it's cold, but what happens when it melts? It's a cool party, a cool person, a cool collection. What does that mean? I'm more interested in things that are uncool, things that have a certain individuality, a certain soul, a certain longevity, emotion, fragility.

How do you stand out as a fashion ad campaign? By using people off the street; it does generate buzz.

A fragrance is a veritable story, told and explained in scent, in notes, in impressions. It's a score based on the emotions of each instant, a captivating music of the senses.

I used to hate L.A., but I met such a great group of people there that I fell in love with it.

When I'm traveling the world, I don't ever look anymore at the geography - just enough to catch galleries and paintings.

When you come into a house like Saint Laurent, or Chanel, or Lanvin, and you go into a place that existed before you were born and will exist after you die, it takes some time to get in, to get to people, and to get the energy of the place.

I am very much a people person.

Sometimes you don't really need armor to feel protected. Sometimes maybe you need just a chiffon dress to hug you.

I always wear a dinner jacket. I never have this definition of what goes for the morning or the evening or what works for the weekend.

I think that because I'm overweight, [my] fantasy was lightness. So I project my fantasy to the clothes, and now all I do is light, light clothes because it's the one thing I don't have. That is why I'm too afraid to lose weight because then I might make heavy clothes.

I think 'modesty' is a beautiful word today - and a beautiful attitude.

I love and respect women. I work mostly with women.

The nature of fashion is family. You see that at almost every house, it was owned first by a family. It wasn't owned by a bank.

I've always said fashion is like roast chicken: You don't have to think about it to know it's delicious.

I don't think you can be a designer if you don't care.

I think that we are in a very strange time, when everybody is thinking about what is going to happen, and everybody is kind of cleaning house a little bit. In the fashion world, we are doing something similar. We are taking the fake out and being a little bit more real and simple.

I am always trying to put myself inside: Every dress I do, I think, 'If I were a woman, would I wear it?'

I like dresses for night; I like after-party more than party. I like the mystery; I like the dream, like fantasy dresses. I think, also, that you make women dream.

Nothing is ever enough for me. I'm always thinking what is wrong, what needs to be fixed.

There is always a reason why, and I need to tell the stories.

When I was either 7 or 8 years old, I did a sketch every day of my teacher and what she wore. At the end of the year, I gave her the sketchbook. For me, the sketching of dresses was about fantasy and dreams.

I don't like perfection - I think it's dangerous. There is nothing after perfection.

I feel more and more that the most beautiful people are the ones who are comfortable with themselves.

I'm always looking for a story.

I know amazing people in fashion who are anything but fake. They are very real and very sensitive. They are happy and sad. They are loyal friends.

If I am in a beautiful place, but I don't like the people, I am miserable.

Some days I feel like a piano: kind of short, always in black & white, always expected to produce music.

Me, as a designer who is not exactly skinny, all I want is comfortable clothes.

If I wasn't a designer, I would love to be a doctor. That is my fantasy, my dream. A doctor will give you a tablet if you have a headache, and I will give you a dress, and we both make you feel good.

H&M approached us to collaborate, and see if we could translate the dream we created at Lanvin to a wider audience, not just a dress for less. I have said in the past that I would never do a mass-market collection, but what intrigued me was the idea of H&M going luxury rather than Lanvin going public. This has been an exceptional exercise, where two companies at opposite poles can work together because we share the same philosophy of bringing joy and beauty to men and women around the world.

I think fashion is about longevity and doing your work. It isn't about winning or losing. It's about process, keeping it going.

Many, many times I find that whatever is looking good on the screen doesn't always look or feel good on the body. So who do we design for - do we design for the screen, or do we design for women?

I'd rather be relevant than cool.

I am very sensitive to the smells and sensations that are part of perfumes because they remind me of things: moments from the past, people, events.

The nature of fashion is family.

I adore women, and the one thing I want to do more than anything is to see a transformation of personality when someone puts on one of my dresses.

'Commercial' is not the word that has to be said only by CEOs. It has to be something that is maybe the essence of design, because design has some sort of art in it and creation, but it's also some object that you have to use. There is also this pragmatic end to it.

I barely finish one pre-collection before I must start on another. Sales start, but I am already elsewhere creatively. The men's show is being prepared, but we also need to think about accessories, perfumes and other items. In sum, I never stop.

I like having the freedom to dress as I desire.

I think that if you want to pass emotion, you have to write a letter. Emotions do not pass in SMS or in e-mail.

I love women. I get along with women more than men, and I have more women friends.

Fashion is about having a fantasy.

Fashion doesn't look good only on models; it can look good on different people of different ages and different body shapes.

I work on fittings, mostly. You know, I sketch less and less in my work. I sketch for the show sometimes, but then it becomes more conceptual. But when I don't sketch, it becomes more pragmatic.

For me, the sketching of dresses was about fantasy and dreams. In my little room at home, I felt that I was somewhere else. In Paris, for instance.

Mine is a job that never ends, a function where it is almost impossible to set aside time to rest or take a breather.

Everyone wants to be young and skinny. This is awful. Curves are marvelous. Wrinkles are hypnotizing. Why not just be happy with who you are?

I hate bridges. I'm always very insecure on bridges.

At Yves Saint Laurent, I felt like the son-in-law - like I was part of the family, but not quite. When I was fired, I felt like the widow.

I never think people should do things for me. I think I should do things for others. That makes me more comfortable.

All I want to do is make people beautiful.

If it's not edible, it's not food. If it's not wearable, it's not fashion.

I thought, 'It doesn't matter what that woman is wearing,' but then I realised actually it's our job as designers to make women smile; to bring them the chocolate without the calories.

For me, Lancome was more than just a brand. There was something very nostalgic about the name, about the whole story.

Almost every collection I do has 200 different references. I don't have two of the same coat, two of the same dress. I have it in one color, in one fabric. I've tried to adapt the culture of couture, and the know-how and the heritage, but I try to update it.

Our clothes are not always beautiful on the hanger, but put them on, and they fit like bathing suits.

Fashion is not about before, it's not about after, it's about now

I love to travel inside my head, take journeys toward the unknown, meet new people, dream.

Fashion is not enough anymore. It's not just about what you wear. I mean, I don't know how many women can afford to take the time to come to Paris for three fittings.

All the young people in fashion worship the people who have been around a long time. I think it is about keeping something going through the generations. Take my work: Just because I'm not 20 anymore doesn't mean that people don't appreciate what I do.

If I were a buyer today in one of the American department stores, I would go with extremes-the most beautiful, the more expensive, the more eccentric. I would take risks. The worst thing would be to buy only the little black dress. You know why? Because everyone has it already. I would go with a purple dress, something different

Fashion is not about buying a second skin. Fashion is about having a fantasy.

Wear flats. You're short. It's much cooler not to pretend.